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[1:58] The meeting will now begin.

[2:10] Well, good morning, everyone.

[2:13] Today is Thursday, June 5th.

[2:15] We call the meeting to order.

[2:18] Can you please have the Honorable Larry McAllen lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance.

[2:23] Thank you.

[2:24] Please join me as we salute the flag that represents our Republic.

[2:28] I pledge allegiance through the flag of the United States of America and through the Republic

[2:34] for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

[2:41] Thank you.

[2:47] Clerk, do we have a quorum?

[2:49] We show a quorum, Mr. Chair.

[2:52] Thank you.

[2:53] At this time, do we have any public comments received prior to the meeting or anything like that?

[3:02] Good morning, Mr. Chair. No such comments were received.

[3:04] Thank you.

[3:05] I want to open public comment period of the meeting.

[3:12] Okay.

[3:13] Have we received any written public comments?

[3:16] No.

[3:17] Okay.

[3:19] Do we have any members of the public to wish to speak right now?

[3:25] Okay.

[3:27] Seeing none, no raised hands.

[3:31] Now, we'll now close the public comment period for matters not listed on the agenda and move

[3:36] on to the action items.

[3:40] Right?

[3:43] This is the review.

[3:45] Review and prioritize agenda items.

[3:48] None are expected at this time.

[3:51] Do we have any?

[3:52] Moving?

[3:52] Good.

[3:53] All right.

[3:57] Now, we'll move on to our consent calendar.

[3:58] Do any of our members wish to speak on this item?

[4:05] Move consent.

[4:06] Motion to second.

[4:08] Record.

[4:23] We have a first and a second to approve the consent calendar.

[4:27] Agenda item one and receive and file items two through six.

[4:32] We have a second.

[4:34] And could I please get a roll call vote?

[4:38] Seal, I'll hear.

[4:42] Papiara, Mescua.

[4:46] Adele and Trotty Stadler.

[4:49] Phil Basera.

[4:50] Yes.

[4:52] Brian Bayless.

[4:54] Yes.

[4:55] Catherine Barker.

[4:56] Brian Berkson. Yes. Daniel Brothman.

[5:04] Jeanette Burns.

[5:07] Denise Delgado.

[5:11] Jonathan Demetru.

[5:14] John Dutre. Bubba Fish.

[5:21] John Gabbard. Yes. Jason Gibbs. William Goh.

[5:30] Hurt Hagman.

[5:32] Jan Harnick. Yes. Laura Hernandez.

[5:39] Lauren Hughes Leslie. Yes.

[5:44] Heather Hut. Mike Judge.

[5:53] Yes.

[5:56] Lyman.

[6:01] Linda Krupa. Yes. Andrew Laura. Yes. Carlos Leon.

[6:09] John?

[6:10] Yes.

[6:14] Richard Lewis?

[6:17] Richard Loa?

[6:18] Yes.

[6:20] Clint Lowermore?

[6:22] Hi.

[6:24] Got it.

[6:26] Steve Monos?

[6:28] Yes.

[6:30] Ray Marquez?

[6:31] Yes.

[6:33] Larry McCallan?

[6:34] Yes.

[6:35] Marcia McLean?

[6:37] Yes.

[6:39] Tim McOsker?

[6:40] Yes.

[6:41] Linda Molina?

[6:42] Yes.

[6:46] Carol Moore.

[6:48] Aye.

[6:50] Juan Munoz Kevada.

[6:52] Aye. Ara Najarian.

[6:56] Aye.

[6:59] Frank Navarro.

[7:00] Yes.

[7:03] Nikki Perez.

[7:08] David Reddy.

[7:09] Yes.

[7:12] Gil Vrbalar.

[7:13] Yes.

[7:15] Ed Rhys.

[7:16] Yes.

[7:20] Crystal Ruiz.

[7:25] Holly Salay.

[7:26] Yes.

[7:31] Hi.

[7:35] Tim Sandoval.

[7:38] Zach Schwenk.

[7:41] Emma Sharif.

[7:46] Assam Shaikh.

[7:48] Yes.

[7:50] Thank you. Got it.

[7:52] Marty Siminoff.

[7:53] Yes.

[7:54] Jeremy Smith.

[7:57] Ward Smith.

[8:00] Hilda Salise.

[8:03] Wes Speak.

[8:04] Bye.

[8:08] Karen Spiegel.

[8:12] Cynthia Sturkwist.

[8:13] Yes.

[8:16] Butch Twiney.

[8:17] Yes.

[8:19] Steve Ty.

[8:24] Bill Uphoff.

[8:25] Yes.

[8:27] Scott Boyce.

[8:31] Donald Wagner.

[8:35] Colleen Wallace.

[8:36] Yes.

[8:38] Alan Wopner.

[8:39] Yes.

[8:40] Thomas Wong.

[8:42] Yes.

[8:43] San Wu.

[8:45] Abstain.

[8:51] Mr. Chair, the motion passes 37 in favor with one abstention.

[8:56] Thank you. For our informational items, we're going to take them, introduce them together.

[9:00] So right now at this time, I'm going to ask if there are any public comments or any public people in the public that wish to speak on these two items prior to introduction.

[9:08] Mr. Chairman, this is Fred Jung. Please excuse the interruption. I just wanted to record my yes vote, sir. Thank you.

[9:15] Got it. Okay. Thank you.

[9:17] Are there any public?

[9:20] All right.

[9:21] Now I'm going to call on Annie Nam to introduce the two informational item speakers.

[9:26] Good morning, Chair and members of the Transportation Committee.

[9:30] At today's TC, we have two presenters who will provide an update on high-speed rail projects

[9:38] in Southern California.

[9:39] So each project represents a significant initiative aimed at transforming

[9:43] inter-regional mobility across the region and the state.

[9:47] First, we have LaDonna DiCameo with the Southern California who is the Southern California Regional Director for the California High Speed Rail Authority.

[9:57] Ms. DiCameo plays a leading role in advancing the high speed rail program through Southern California.

[10:04] The Los Angeles to Anaheim segment will play a key role in closing the statewide connection.

[10:09] And today's presentation will essentially provide an overview of the recent progress for the entire corridor and what's ahead for the Southern California segment.

[10:18] I'd also like to add that we'll also hear from Asha Jones, Vice President of Government Affairs for Brightline West.

[10:27] Brightland West is a privately-led high-speed rail project that will connect Las Vegas to Southern California.

[10:34] The corridor will run along the I-15 and include stations in Las Vegas, Victor Valley and Rancho Cucamonga.

[10:41] The Rancho Cucamonga station will link directly with MetroLink, giving riders access to Los Angeles as well.

[10:47] We'd like to thank both Ms. DiCameo and Ms. Jones for being with us today and look forward to their presentations.

[10:53] So at this time, I'd like to invite Ms. DiCamino to provide her presentation.

[11:14] Which?

[11:16] Off because everybody's pushed it?

[11:18] Okay.

[11:19] That would be my hint.

[11:21] Thank you for having me.

[11:22] I'm LaDonna DiCamillo.

[11:23] I'm Regional Director for the California High Speed Rail Southern California Region.

[11:27] We're going to do a quick overview today of the project and where it's at as a whole.

[11:33] And then a deeper dive into our Los Angeles to Anaheim project section,

[11:36] and which is in the environmental study process.

[11:40] So excited to be here.

[11:42] Thank you for the opportunity.

[11:43] Much appreciated, allowing me to give you this update.

[11:49] Reminder, we are a state organization,

[11:52] so you're gonna see some differences

[11:54] between myself and Brightline.

[11:57] As a state organization, kind of a different approach.

[12:02] So you'll see some distinctions,

[12:03] but we are a part of the CalSTA, California Transportation Agency, and under the leadership

[12:11] of the governor. I like to remind people about our mission. And we were created really by the

[12:19] voters in 2008 by Proposition 1A to connect San Francisco with Los Angeles, Anaheim.

[12:26] We have identified a phase one that's shown here in blue. It's 494 miles.

[12:31] And we are to make that trip time, particularly trip time between San Francisco and Los Angeles Union Station in less than three hours.

[12:39] So that has been part of our mission and our drive to achieve high speeds.

[12:45] And then we've also identified some potential phase two which are shown in yellow.

[12:50] We will be at speeds or we are anticipating being at speeds over 200 miles an hour.

[12:54] And we are limited in how many stations we can have because the voters wanted to make sure that we're competitive

[13:00] competitive and we don't end up stopping so many times that we're not providing that quality service.

[13:08] Where we are today, we are under construction in the Central Valley on 119 miles.

[13:13] It is what we refer to as a test track.

[13:16] There aren't test tracks in the United States for these speeds over 220 miles an hour.

[13:21] So we've designated this area shown here in yellow in the Central Valley.

[13:26] we've done a substantial amount of completion for the guideway.

[13:30] And that is what you'll see if you're driving up to 99,

[13:34] you'll see a lot of that guideway in place.

[13:37] I will kind of jump ahead of some of the questions.

[13:40] If you hear we haven't laid track, that is true,

[13:42] because that's going to be the last thing you lay,

[13:44] is when you come in and when you have your entire guideway,

[13:47] you purchase the track and lay it all at once.

[13:51] We're doing advanced design to connect Bakersfield with

[13:54] So that's the 171 miles that we feel will be our initial operating segment.

[14:01] We've environmentally cleared San Francisco to Los Angeles.

[14:06] So 463 miles has been environmentally cleared.

[14:09] And we're advancing what we refer to as the bookends.

[14:12] Proposition 1A set aside some funds for Northern California,

[14:15] where we've worked with Caltrain to electrify their corridor.

[14:18] They put it in place, and they saw a substantial increase in ridership there.

[14:26] And then in the Southern California, I don't think I have a slide on this, but we invested with Metro, $70 million in

[14:34] Rose Grands Marquardt in Santa Fe Springs, which I believe is substantially complete.

[14:39] It's open and operating, so we're proud to partner with Metro on that, as well as on Union Station.

[14:44] And we are working with Metro now for improvements on Union Station to make that an overpass there.

[14:53] And then we're designing stations in the Central Valley.

[14:56] We're actually designing them in phases.

[15:00] to be installed in phases so that as our ridership grows, we will grow with it at our station areas.

[15:07] We're under new leadership under CEO Ian Chaudhry. He's bringing more of the private sector thought

[15:14] process into the planning that we're doing. So he set out some goals to build smarter

[15:22] and faster and more economical and in more in phases than maybe what we had thought

[15:28] what we would do initially in the Central Valley so we can talk a little bit more about

[15:32] what that means.

[15:33] But basically trying to make our dollars go further, provide for more riders.

[15:39] It may not initially be the high speeds, but it allows us to phase in that service

[15:45] and provide more service to everyone by taking a different approach.

[15:51] We partner with Brightline West, who you're going to hear from, also in the High

[15:56] High Desert Corridor, which you, the High Desert Corridor, you can see on this map how interconnected we will all be.

[16:03] And this will be a southwest regional high speed rail network connecting San Francisco ultimately.

[16:11] Our vision is with Las Vegas and Southern California.

[16:15] I'm going to dive in just a little bit more into the Palmdale, into the Southern California area.

[16:21] area. We see Palmdale as a hub, particularly for initial phases of our operations, connecting

[16:29] what we're planning to do with what Brightline has planned via Victor Valley. That High Desert

[16:35] Corridor, the dotted blue line is High Desert Corridor Joint Powers Authority. We're actually

[16:41] helping them advance their final environmental work. But we have quite a partnership with

[16:47] the city of Palmdale and the joint powers authority and we see this as really our first

[16:53] step for connecting Southern California via what Brightline has proposed.

[16:59] Since we started work, we've created over 15,000 construction jobs.

[17:03] We have a very aggressive business, small business engagement program, so we're always

[17:08] looking for ways to engage more with small businesses.

[17:11] In fact, most of our employees come from the communities in Central Valley.

[17:17] We're an important provider of jobs in that area for both small businesses and for employees.

[17:25] And then we're leading on sustainability and trying to make our operation as sustainable

[17:30] as possible with a commitment to use all renewable electric energy for our operations.

[17:40] Everyone always asks where our funding comes from.

[17:43] So this is a good slide to summarize that.

[17:45] We're still almost 80% state funded.

[17:48] We do have some federal funding grants that have been allocated over the years.

[17:55] The first grant, the error grant was really for the environmental work,

[17:59] which has been completed.

[18:01] And then more recently with the infrastructure investment award,

[18:06] which we actually haven't started spending yet.

[18:11] And that was, if you saw any news yesterday, you probably saw it.

[18:16] So Secretary Duffy is taking a look at this grant.

[18:20] We disagree with the fact that he says that we're not done yet.

[18:25] And as I said, of course, we haven't laid rail because we haven't finished all the guideway.

[18:30] So I'm just going to address that question now because I know somebody's going to have it.

[18:36] But we do have 30 days to respond.

[18:39] We disagree with their assessment of the progress we made.

[18:43] We started in the Central Valley.

[18:45] We're doing what we can with the funding that was initially allocated.

[18:50] And we're trying to figure out ways and looking at all sorts of ways

[18:55] to really stretch that dollar and make our previous investment more productive.

[19:02] So we will be working with the administration, but we disagree with what they have to say.

[19:09] We have project update report coming out in July, which will provide additional information on schedule and approach.

[19:18] Okay, moving more to Southern California, where I oversee what's happening in Southern California.

[19:24] We're divided for environmental work into four project sections.

[19:29] Bakersfield to Los Angeles, environmentally complete.

[19:33] And then we're deep diving today into Los Angeles to Anaheim.

[19:36] Just a highlight.

[19:38] Bakersfield to Palmdale was environmentally cleared in 2022.

[19:42] Palmdale to Burbank, environmentally cleared in 2024.

[19:45] We are looking for funding for that Bakersfield to Palmdale work

[19:49] so that we can connect into Palmdale to make that connection,

[19:53] like I mentioned into Brightline. And then we've adopted a preferred alternative for our approach

[20:01] to Los Angeles to Anaheim. So I'm going to spend the rest of the time on Los Angeles to Anaheim,

[20:07] which is probably relevant to many of you. We have a preferred alternative, which we referred

[20:15] to as our shared passenger track alternative. This is the corridor you see in this map.

[20:23] There are actually two build alternatives and the only difference between the two build alternatives

[20:28] is the location of a proposed locomotive light maintenance facility. We have one proposed at

[20:35] 26th Street in Vernon and then we have another proposed at 15th Street. We like the 26th Street

[20:43] one a little bit better. We were already planning to acquire some of that property. It's just south,

[20:48] for those of you who know BNSS Hobart Yard, it's just a little bit south of that yard and

[20:53] a lot of that property we're planning to acquire anyway. It gives us kind of a double-ended

[20:58] operation. We do not plan to have a high-speed rail stop or station in this corridor. At

[21:06] least it's not in our preferred alternative. We took a look at this and we thought an

[21:10] additional platform would be a redundant cost and expense given that Metrolink and Amtrak

[21:17] LoSan all serve the same corridor.

[21:20] If one of our passengers really needs to connect with us, they can take a train to Union

[21:25] Station or take a train to Arctic.

[21:27] We are carrying forward two designs just in case.

[21:31] So we were taking forward a design option at Norwalk Santa Fe Springs where we would

[21:37] change the existing MetroLink station to add that platform for us or a design option at

[21:46] Fullerton.

[21:47] But our preferred alternative is no station or stop.

[21:51] We call it the shared passenger track alternative because this is a BNSF corridor.

[21:55] It's currently a three main track corridor.

[21:58] It's used by MetroLink, LOSAN, and other passenger carriers currently.

[22:04] We're going to add one, we're proposing to add one main track and allow this to be kind

[22:09] of a 2 plus 2 operation.

[22:11] So as you can see in the graphic, two tracks will be dedicated freight and two tracks

[22:18] predominantly passenger.

[22:21] But from time to time, our modeling shows it's necessary to have freight potentially

[22:27] run under that can't neary.

[22:30] So our modeling shows that we can allow this.

[22:34] What this system does is allow for directional traffic for rail operations.

[22:40] So all the freight trains are going the same direction on this track,

[22:44] the same direction on that track.

[22:47] It really opens up a more efficient corridor.

[22:51] So it allows for our two trains per hour per direction,

[22:55] but also some potential growth in the future for the other passenger carriers that serve that corridor.

[23:04] Real quick, I'll run through these.

[23:06] I've got a graphic that shows some of the improvements we're making throughout the corridor,

[23:12] and we're going to deep dive into the commerce area where we will have a flyover.

[23:17] Currently, when freight needs, when BNSF needs to go into their facility in commerce, which is shown here in green, the freight tracks are shown in orange, they actually have to cross over the passenger tracks.

[23:32] What we want to do is apply over or some sort of viaduct, whatever you want to call the bridge, so that BNSF can serve underneath their yard without that conflict.

[23:41] And that's one way that we will be creating additional capacity in the corridor.

[23:46] We'll have to relocate that commerce station that's currently there just about a mile further to the east.

[23:56] Back to the main corridor, taking a dive into the central part of the corridor.

[24:02] You can see BNSF has some facilities on the south side in green.

[24:06] So we're going to move the BNSF back to the south side of that corridor with a flyover viaduct in the

[24:13] Norwalk Santa Fe Springs area.

[24:15] And then down on the bottom right is the Fullerton airport.

[24:18] So in order to take our cantonary out of the air path way, we will be down in a trench going back under the

[24:28] BNSF tracks within that corridor.

[24:33] Then as we go into the Fullerton area, passenger trains will be on the south side of the corridor

[24:39] so that the passenger trains can serve into Arctic and further south without that conflict

[24:47] with freight rail.

[24:49] So I know I went through that kind of path, but really we're just trying to remove the

[24:53] conflicts within the corridor so that it allows for additional capacity for future

[24:59] passenger operations. I mentioned the light maintenance facility. It's just like the word

[25:06] sounds. It's light maintenance. We're not going to do heavy maintenance at this particular location,

[25:10] but it will be a place where we can inspect our equipment and service, do minor service,

[25:16] and restocking of the equipment at that facility. This is the 26th Street option,

[25:22] So you can see via map for anyone who's in this area.

[25:28] 26th Street, this is the BNSF Hobart Yard.

[25:31] We will be acquiring the properties that are in gray.

[25:36] And we had already planned to acquire some of those properties anyway, as I said.

[25:40] So this is the location that we would put the light maintenance facility there.

[25:45] Light maintenance facility option at 15th Street.

[25:48] You can see these are dead end tracks, which operationally is harder for trains to do.

[25:53] So it is not our preferred alternative, but we wanted to take a look at options.

[26:00] Grade separations, the corridor between Union Station and Fullerton will be for us grade separated,

[26:09] Which means that we won't be, there won't be, traffic that is going cars don't have to stop for our trains.

[26:18] We will be grade separating that corridor, the one with the four main tracks.

[26:22] When we turn south to go toward Arctic, it's a two-track system.

[26:26] There aren't very many freight trains on that.

[26:28] So we're planning to leave that system pretty much as it is.

[26:32] That would be in the city of Anaheim, and we've been working with Anaheim.

[26:37] But we felt that grade separating was going to create more disruption than was needed for our two trains per hour per direction.

[26:47] And they'll be pretty quick trains. They're not long freight trains.

[26:50] So we're leaving that pretty much as is with the exception.

[26:55] And then this one shows the map of with the exception of a couple crossings that we needed for our infrastructure.

[27:03] So as we get toward Arctic, I don't know if you can see my cursor, Arctic, which is the Anaheim Transit Center down here at the bottom.

[27:12] We're going to put some layover tracks so that we can get our trains out of the way of everybody else.

[27:17] And that will necessitate some improvements of grade separations there.

[27:21] But for the most part, we do have plans to grade separate that corner.

[27:25] Where are we?

[27:26] major milestones for LA to A. This is the last section that we have

[27:32] environmental to do. Our draft is coming out later this year. We're currently

[27:37] trending toward late October, possibly early November, but we will

[27:43] get it out when we're in Africa this year. So we'll be looking for folks to

[27:48] comment on that and then we'll hopefully have our final environmental

[27:54] document out sometime spring, I would say mid-2026, and then to our board for a final determination later that year.

[28:05] That's it for me, and I wanted to leave time for questions, so I apologize for talking fast.

[28:12] All right.

[28:13] Supervisor Spiegel, how are you?

[28:19] I sit on several of us here on the MetroLink board, and we have quite a bit of challenges with just the trains that are going now.

[28:29] And I have to be honest, we're kind of treated like we're the bottom of the list as far as priorities.

[28:34] And we've had more delays this past few months than we've had in a very long time.

[28:40] I'm nervous about this, and I'm sure that this will become a priority over MetroLink again.

[28:47] So I'm just throwing it out there that we're going to be watching.

[28:54] BNSF and UP certainly are not, I mean, they're priorities in their minds, and I get it.

[29:00] They own the country.

[29:02] That's what we were built by them.

[29:04] So I get that except for we have to be friendly on this.

[29:07] And I'm hoping that the relationship will continue to include metric and conversations and updates.

[29:14] And it just gets a little nerve-wracking when you add another.

[29:18] How much of new track are you talking? Or is this going to be all new track?

[29:24] Or is this going to be a lot of overlapping?

[29:27] And I went through the improvements really quickly, but adding that fourth main track and allowing that directional flow is a game changer.

[29:36] We're taking out track that BNSF uses for storage or staging of trains.

[29:41] So BNSF will hold trains which of course blocks your corridor, clog you up.

[29:47] So we're taking out those areas and replacing them at the Hobart yard,

[29:52] which is why you saw so much property acquired there.

[29:56] The model shows and it would have to be a perfect

[30:00] And we have to continue to be in constant communication because it's all the devils and the details.

[30:06] But we believe that these infrastructure improvements, the flyovers and so forth,

[30:11] removing all those conflicts will not only accommodate R2 per hour per direction,

[30:16] but will also help with Metrolinx congestion and allow for growth.

[30:22] But those will be complex conversations as we get funding and move forward.

[30:27] And in fact, we're working very closely with MetroLink on the Fullerton improvements.

[30:33] We're trying to mirror what they propose because that's one of their first priorities.

[30:37] So we are working very closely with MetroLink.

[30:39] And the second part to that is we have been, in recent months, a lot of strikes.

[30:47] Do you see that being a challenge for your line?

[30:53] Because that just throws everything in keeps.

[30:56] I look forward to having that problem.

[31:00] No, I just, I, we, no.

[31:04] Well, strikes do you mean as operations?

[31:07] No, no.

[31:07] No, what am I missing?

[31:08] Person on the tracks.

[31:10] Oh.

[31:11] In train language.

[31:12] Is a labor, I was thinking a labor strike.

[31:16] That's why I say I look forward to that.

[31:18] In train talk it means you're hitting something or somebody.

[31:20] Yeah, no, I'm sorry.

[31:22] Sorry if anybody else can hear that.

[31:23] I'm like labor strike Larry help me. I'm sorry. I'm taking labor strike. No

[31:31] Yeah vehicle vehicle strikes

[31:33] I you know I many of you know me from my 30 years with BNSF and it's always a challenge

[31:39] It's the importance of the grade separation of the main corridor and why will be be core

[31:44] Grade separated in that corridor because it really removes that that possibility. So we've been having an upswing

[31:51] I mean, I know it goes in waves, but I'm just – now we've got another – hey, I look

[31:56] forward to it.

[31:57] I mean, that'd be around.

[31:59] No, I'm sorry.

[32:00] I meant labor strikes.

[32:01] I thought labor strikes.

[32:02] There is one.

[32:03] That's planned.

[32:03] Anyway.

[32:03] No, no, no.

[32:06] We want a safe operation, no question.

[32:08] Thank you.

[32:11] Next, we'll go over to Commissioner McLean.

[32:15] Hi.

[32:16] Yes.

[32:16] Hi there.

[32:18] Hi.

[32:19] Hi.

[32:21] You know, I have been a huge advocate of commuter rail,

[32:25] metrolink, and improving the ride for commuters.

[32:29] You mentioned that the voters voted for this.

[32:34] Well, I was around in 2008.

[32:38] The voters actually voted for a $30 billion project,

[32:45] and it is now well over $100 billion project.

[32:48] So I think you can understand the skepticism of some people about how this just continues to go

[32:57] on and on and on and money is poured into it but we don't see a rainbow at the end,

[33:07] you know, a pot of gold at the end. So anyway for all the project managers that have come along,

[33:14] I feel sorry for you sometimes because you're faced with trying to tell people that this

[33:21] is wonderful and it's going to happen.

[33:23] Maybe it will someday, who knows.

[33:28] But I just wanted to mention that we need to focus more on commuter rail.

[33:35] And I know that there has been some funding from High Speed Rail in order to double

[33:39] track some along the Antelope Valley line and it's running to kind of a shortfall right

[33:46] now.

[33:47] And just wonder if there's any more help from High Speed Rail to help to get that done.

[33:58] That's not only for the Antelope Valley line folks but it goes from Palmdale, Lancaster,

[34:04] all through the San Fernando Valley and into Union Station.

[34:07] So I'm hoping some attention can be paid to that as well.

[34:15] Especially a statement, but my recollection of 2008 was different.

[34:20] I was a voter too.

[34:21] And I was led to believe this was about 20% of the funding that was being allocated.

[34:26] Admittedly, the prices have gone up for, we've made mistakes.

[34:32] So we don't need to argue that.

[34:33] But what I would say is that we were never fully funded.

[34:38] We were never granted a stream of funding to build off of, which I think has been one

[34:43] of the challenges for the project of being able to plan really well.

[34:48] We are in the Governor's Papan Invest Program for a guaranteed billion dollars a year over

[34:56] the course of the program, which really allows us to leverage those funds better

[35:01] because we know what's coming in and there aren't restrictions on it.

[35:06] Our new CEO, I will say, is really trying to figure out how to stretch that dollar more so that we can serve more of Californians.

[35:13] With respect to the Antelope Valley, we don't have money to help.

[35:18] If I could say we have funds to help, we're thinking with that Southwest High Speed Corridor Network that Amtrak is going to be a big partner in serving Palmdale.

[35:30] And that's one of the reasons why we're focused on getting to Palmdale.

[35:34] So then we rely on the Amtrak service.

[35:36] We can all be partners.

[35:38] Rising tide floats all boats.

[35:39] So I agree.

[35:41] Let's build up Metrolinx Analog Valley Service so that it's reliable.

[35:46] And we can move forward as partners of them serving us toward Palmdale

[35:51] and making the system interconnected.

[35:54] Well, the governor's budget isn't exactly balanced at this point either.

[35:59] Yes.

[36:00] Commissioner Kelly?

[36:02] Trisha Kelly?

[36:03] Yes.

[36:03] Thank you.

[36:05] I noticed that…

[36:07] You are?

[36:08] And notice you say that there are 463 miles out of the 494 that have been environmentally

[36:16] cleared.

[36:17] So that, where are the 31 miles and are there, that have not been environmentally

[36:24] cleared in, are there going to be significant challenges to them?

[36:29] It's 30 miles from Los Angeles to Anaheim.

[36:32] The extra mile gets lost in rounding errors, but that's that last segment that I talked

[36:36] about from Los Angeles to Anaheim.

[36:38] That's the last one we have to environmentally clear.

[36:41] And I get most excited about it because, to the MetroLink question, MetroLink can

[36:46] actually start building some of these, and we can partner with them to advance those

[36:51] long before high-speed rail gets into that corridor.

[36:55] So you don't see significant environmental concerns?

[37:01] I don't. I don't. No.

[37:04] The challenge is going to be all the partners to the supervisor's questions.

[37:09] It's all the partners who currently use it, who have an interest in it,

[37:12] and it's working with everybody to make it work.

[37:15] That's, I think, see as the biggest challenge.

[37:21] Okay. Zeal, here.

[37:27] Forgive me if this is common knowledge. I just joined the committee.

[37:31] I wanted to know, is there any exclusivity when it comes to contracting services?

[37:36] Like, is it, you know, companies from California or national or is it international?

[37:41] And if so, if we're open, does, at any given point, does that hinder or kind of help the budgeting process?

[37:50] We have a Buy America policy. I'll admit I'm not in the procurement group.

[37:57] And I know that it has been a bit of a challenge to limit yourself to Buy Only America for certain types of products.

[38:04] But for the most part, we are very focused on trying to buy what's here in the states, engaging small businesses that are local,

[38:13] putting requirements to the extent that we can in our contracts with our prime contractors to keep local people engaged.

[38:22] We have a community benefits agreement with building trades to try to utilize local folks as we build.

[38:31] So we do try to – does that help answer your question?

[38:34] Yeah.

[38:37] Would you want it to be a certain way rather than what it's now?

[38:43] For like the Buy America, only for certain equipment we may have to, because you can't just go buy a train set.

[38:52] It has to be built and it built to certain specifications, which we're still working on.

[38:59] The CEO is looking at maybe making some changes to our specifications, but you have to order it and have somebody build it.

[39:05] And not all of it necessarily can be built in the United States.

[39:10] So when we get to that point, we may need to look for some variances, but I'm not close enough to

[39:16] that activity to know for sure. Thank you. All right. Next to be Commissioner Wu.

[39:24] Thank you. A follow-up question on the finance of this project. On the funding source, you listed

[39:32] 21.9 billion from state funding and a 6.8 billion from federal funding. They add up to

[39:40] $28.7 billion, as of today, the initial operating segment is going to cost more than that.

[39:51] So the total cost is going to cost another $100 billion to complete the whole project

[39:59] from San Francisco to Los Angeles.

[40:01] Even with the cap and the trade extension, you only get a billion per year.

[40:09] So what is in planning to do that gap?

[40:15] Well, and that's what the new CEO, because he's private sector, is looking for ways to leverage private dollars, private investment, development in and around our stations.

[40:28] You know, can we leverage some of the property that we've already acquired to make some funds back on that?

[40:36] we're looking at every opportunity. We're not unaware of the shortfall. I mean we're aware of

[40:43] the shortfall and trying to get creative to finish what's been started and make that productive,

[40:49] but also to the Gilroy, the current focus is connecting Gilroy and Palmdale because that's

[40:55] where we get to our major population bases. So even if, you know, we're going to finish

[41:01] what's already under construction, but new construction may look different so that we

[41:06] can phase it, still get to those major population bases, still connect with Brightline, and then

[41:13] phase in more of the vision of what was in Proposition 1A with the double track and the

[41:21] full high speed 220 miles per hour and so forth.

[41:24] Do you own any land or property nearby your station so you can do some Mexican development?

[41:32] We do. We have a whole planning team that has worked with communities with the stations all around.

[41:38] We do own some property in the Fresno area.

[41:42] If I had a magic wand, I would go back and put some business development zones around those so that we could work a little bit more.

[41:49] But I understand that controversial because – but we do own some property there and we're looking at opportunities to leverage that property,

[41:57] not just for ridership but also from the financial side.

[42:00] Thank you.

[42:02] Mr. Dutre?

[42:04] Yeah, on the Bakersfield to Palmdale where Los Angeles is zero,

[42:08] a scheduled construction commencement period of time or decade or...

[42:13] We don't. We gave up on the decades.

[42:16] We gave up on the...

[42:17] Well, there may be something in the project update report in July,

[42:22] but for the most part, we have not put out schedules

[42:26] because we don't have that consistent funding.

[42:28] Right. So we got people thinking, oh, it's going to be built in 2033.

[42:32] Well, that was if funding was not a problem or an issue. Yeah.

[42:37] And on the phase two from L.A. to Inland Empire down to say,

[42:40] I'm assuming there's no planning right now.

[42:42] There's no environmental. That's just way out there.

[42:45] I've been with the authority a little over four years.

[42:47] I haven't touched it. Yeah.

[42:51] Commissioner Moore online.

[42:55] Carol Moore.

[42:59] You have to unmute.

[42:59] Thank you.

[43:03] Am I unmuted?

[43:07] There you go.

[43:07] Thank you.

[43:09] I didn't think it was me.

[43:10] I too voted, and as I recall, if I correct me here, I have a question.

[43:17] I think it was very specific as to the technology that was to be used for the train.

[43:23] 17 years later, technology has really changed, and it's my understanding that the technology we voted for is now not very current,

[43:31] And we're kind of stuck with that.

[43:33] Could you respond to that?

[43:35] Thank you.

[43:37] All the foreign systems are electric.

[43:39] And we're planning to be electric.

[43:42] I know that some maglev people want to do maglev,

[43:46] but it's a vision.

[43:49] We haven't seen it put into any system.

[43:55] What we're planning is electric,

[43:57] which gets us over 200 miles an hour.

[44:01] I would say that we're state of the art and that we're not obsolete technology.

[44:07] We're consistent with what is being done across the...

[44:11] And that's the train itself.

[44:14] I'm speaking of the trains themselves,

[44:16] not the technology of how the trains might be transported.

[44:21] Thank you.

[44:22] Yeah, the train itself hasn't been built because...

[44:25] under the impression that the technology that was specified was very specific and you're

[44:31] saying that isn't true?

[44:35] Not to my knowledge, but the equipment itself has not been procured, so we have not started

[44:42] building it.

[44:47] If I can make a commentary and this is Ladonna speaking, I do think Prop 1A locked us

[44:52] in to some things that have in retrospect locked us in to maybe too much and maybe

[44:59] Maybe we need some...

[45:00] But we're taking a look at it from a phasing kind of approach rather than a whole scale change.

[45:07] But if you think about the vision of Prop 1A of 200 miles an hour, under three hours,

[45:15] you know, maybe there's some ways to do some phasing so that we achieve that over time,

[45:21] but we tried to do it all at once. And that's what lifted costs and made it really complicated.

[45:31] Yeah.

[45:32] Okay.

[45:33] We're going to go on to Colleen Wallace, and after this comment, we're going to go to

[45:37] on to the next presentation, and we'll have information of our present presenter for you

[45:42] to ask her questions afterwards.

[45:44] Hi.

[45:45] Hello.

[45:46] My name is Colleen.

[45:48] On the news this morning, they were talking about this.

[45:52] And if they pull the funding, if they don't give us the funding, then we won't be

[45:58] able to finish this project. Am I correct?

[46:04] I don't have a perfect crystal ball, but let me just say

[46:07] we've been here before. The first administration threatened to pull funding, some back and forth.

[46:15] Now that was before the more recent three billion that was awarded by the last administration.

[46:21] I think we've made good progress and we need that continual funding, but the state has

[46:28] still already put approximately 80 percent of what we've done.

[46:33] We haven't really even started spending this last 3 billion.

[46:37] The administration's come and go and we're going to push back because we think we're

[46:42] still making good progress.

[46:43] Like I said, we're going to try to show how we can stretch the dollar, leverage it,

[46:50] private investment.

[46:52] Hopefully that will be appealing to the new administration.

[46:54] But like I say, my crystal ball isn't perfect, but these mega projects are not easy, and they do require kind of that constant drumbeat to keep things moving.

[47:07] And I see us continuing at least to finish that Bakersfield to Merced and then maybe tie in with something conventional until additional funds can get us to that last step.

[47:21] Okay. Thank you for having me.

[47:22] Much appreciated.

[47:24] Thank you for the presentation.

[47:25] Moving on to the Brightline West update.

[47:40] Hello.

[47:42] Good morning.

[47:43] My name is Asha Jones.

[47:44] I'm the Vice President of Corporate Affairs for Brightline West.

[47:47] That includes government affairs, community affairs, and communications.

[47:52] So just glad to be here.

[47:53] Most recently joined you all in Palm Desert for the 60th anniversary.

[47:58] So got to hear a lot in the infrastructure and what's going on.

[48:04] So, excuse the date on that slide. We've been doing a lot of presentations.

[48:10] All right, have a quick video. I think it will play.

[48:17] Introducing Brightline West, America's first true high-speed train that's ushering in a new era of modern travel.

[48:25] From the lights of Las Vegas to the beaches of Southern California,

[48:30] Brightline West will connect two of the world's most iconic destinations in just two hours

[48:37] by soaring at 200 miles per hour.

[48:40] Brightline Zero Mission, all electric trains will be the greenest form of transportation

[48:46] in the world and will be made right here in the USA with American labor.

[48:52] From beautiful stations with bright lounges and premium amenities to an exceptional onboard

[48:58] experience with all the extras. Brightline West will offer a convenient and comfortable way to work,

[49:05] relax, and play. Welcome to the ride reimagined. Welcome to Brightline West.

[49:15] Thank you. I will say I am the daughter of a grand daughter. Introducing Brightline West.

[49:22] Everybody says they won't be before you long. And then they do that. Do the opposite. But

[49:27] Our goal at our company is to connect city pairs that are too long to drive and too short to fly.

[49:32] I grew up in Las Vegas, so I've gone back and forth to California my whole life.

[49:36] My mother lives in Orange County, and she wanted me to squeeze in a hug at the airport this morning.

[49:41] And I was like, Mom, there is no time.

[49:43] Got to get on the highway.

[49:44] But what we've done, and I'll go into this, but to the right in the yellow is our Florida line.

[49:49] Now in Florida, we're on a freight line, so it is not high-speed rail.

[49:53] But that was our initial rail that came about.

[49:55] To the left in the green is the line I'll talk about today, which is Bright Line West.

[50:00] And then the orange segments that you see are just potential, like what else could be

[50:05] possible when you look at city pairs that are too long to drive and too short to fly.

[50:12] So our first passenger system, I got to ride this, I've ridden it several times, but

[50:16] in Florida, we started out with stations in Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach.

[50:22] And then we did inline stations, which are smaller stations than Aventura and

[50:26] Boca Raton.

[50:27] Those are similar to what we're going to be doing in Hesperia and Apple Valley.

[50:31] Then our flagship station launched in 2023 in Orlando.

[50:35] And we're actually in the Orlando airport, so we're in Terminal C.

[50:39] So if you come in, you can connect there.

[50:41] And just this week, we announced that you can fly with JetBlue.

[50:45] They're going to be a partner and similar to what we're going to do with Metrolink.

[50:48] You can purchase one ticket for Brightline and JetBlue and go all the way straight through to wherever your next stop is.

[50:55] The idea with Brightline is it's really hospitality-focused. It's about customer satisfaction. I fly, I travel a lot, and I know that air travel has changed.

[51:05] And by no means are we saying that we're going to impact air travel. People ask me that all the time. But we just want to give people a different standard.

[51:11] So when you get on the trains, if you're ever in Florida, please let us know. But when you get on the train, there's plenty of room. They're light. They're airy.

[51:18] They're very sociable.

[51:20] I'm a talker.

[51:21] So when I was there, I did Miami to Orlando and I changed my seat in each segment.

[51:26] So some I sat face to face and met new friends.

[51:29] Somebody gave me a book.

[51:31] Other times I sat in the single seat where I could just look out the window.

[51:34] You kind of choose your experience.

[51:36] We write our customer service against national companies.

[51:40] We want people to know, you know, to really enjoy it.

[51:42] So when I came to Brightline my first day, when I go in for orientation, I'm in

[51:47] train station and I don't have a badge on or anything I'm just walking around and the people were so

[51:51] friendly and I'm like they must know who I am but they did not they were just friendly because

[51:55] that's what we rate them on we expect them to have a standard of service and so when I did come

[52:00] back around with my badge on they were like oh it was like yeah but they had already proven

[52:04] that they knew what the model was all

[52:10] right what we're building next so Brightline West connecting

[52:15] Las Vegas and Southern California you'll see Vegas to Southern California I get questions

[52:20] We'll be building along the alignment the whole time.

[52:23] It's not like we're starting in Vegas

[52:25] and then ending in California.

[52:26] We're doing segments along the way.

[52:28] Our station, Las Vegas, then there'll be one in Victor Valley,

[52:32] one in Hesperia in what we're calling Southern California,

[52:36] but it's Rancho Pucamanga.

[52:38] Zero at-grade crossings,

[52:40] because we are up the median of the 15.

[52:43] People ask that all the time, like, what are you doing?

[52:45] We're in the median,

[52:46] and that's what allowed this to be a federal project

[52:48] instead of a state project. All of our permits and things came at the federal level. We do

[52:54] work with cities as we have cutouts and different things and getting on where the stations are,

[52:59] but the majority of our permits were federal. 218 miles from Las Vegas to Rancho. We're

[53:05] estimating 8.6 million one-way passengers a year. And this is based on what we know

[53:10] is coming into Vegas and coming into Southern California right now. I had the misfortune

[53:16] to be on the highway when they had the lithium battery turnover. And so I was coming to California,

[53:22] so it was much better than the folks that were headed to Vegas. But it still took me 10 hours

[53:26] to get to Orange County. And so people ask, you know, what do you do in that case? What

[53:30] are you guys preparing? We're working with the emergency services systems throughout San

[53:35] Bernardino County to make sure that we have a response and an action. They've been having

[53:40] biweekly meetings for over a year now, longer than that. But I've been with the

[53:44] company 18 months.

[53:46] And so having those conversations, making sure we understand what needs to happen will

[53:52] be in the median and there'll be protection on each side.

[53:55] So it's not a matter of, you know, people like our car is going to cross over.

[53:58] We have already thought about that in our building safety into that.

[54:02] We say up to 186 miles per hour, our trains can go over 200.

[54:08] When you look at the terrain and how we're moving, we want to make sure that we're

[54:11] rate that guarantees high speed but is also safe.

[54:18] Our trains, the Siemens American Pioneer 220.

[54:21] This train is being developed especially for our project. We selected Siemens in

[54:27] I believe May of last year to be our train provider. These are fully electric powered trains,

[54:32] 450 passengers per train. I'd like to highlight that we can couple the trains to move more people.

[54:38] Our initial order is a 10 train set but we're already working on

[54:43] a potential second order and then that they will be interoperable.

[54:46] We have a connection and a commitment to California high-speed rail to make sure our trains can

[54:50] communicate and work together.

[54:55] So the benefits.

[54:56] We already know that we're connecting city payers and we're helping people move.

[55:00] For me, my background part of it has been workforce development.

[55:03] So the idea that we're bringing a new industry to the Southwest, I've been working with

[55:07] community colleges along the segment and universities as we build a curriculum

[55:11] so that we'll be able to teach and train people to work on the trains.

[55:15] And then that will be the beginning for hopefully across the country.

[55:19] Creating high-quality good-paying jobs.

[55:22] We do have signed commitments for PLAs with the unions both here and in Nevada.

[55:27] We want to make sure that people are earning a living wage while they're working on the train.

[55:31] And then once our permanent operations and maintenance jobs begin, nearly all thousand will be unioned.

[55:37] There's about 100 that are in different segments that aren't represented,

[55:40] but we've committed to that throughout.

[55:44] Green and safe.

[55:45] I always say that California is kind of ahead of the game here.

[55:48] The battle we're catching up when you're looking at reducing CO2 in the air,

[55:52] we're taking the equivalent of 3 million cars, 16,000 short haul flights out,

[55:57] so we're reducing the CO2 in that way.

[56:00] And then also because of where we're at,

[56:01] and if you're pulling people off the highway,

[56:03] you're also having an impact on traffic-related injuries and deaths.

[56:10] So the train, the track is mostly single track.

[56:15] There's about 37 miles of double track which allows trains to pass each other.

[56:19] So we will be going every hour on the hour, but we do have four areas,

[56:24] well five if you look at when we're coming out on Rancho, that will have double track,

[56:28] but it is mostly single track.

[56:30] And I learned this, I tell people, you know, transportation was not my background,

[56:34] but the way the trains are developed, the conductor would just go from the front of the train

[56:39] train to the back of the train and keep going so they don't turn around in the evening.

[56:47] Our contractor summary, so we're in the process of finalizing all of our contracts right now.

[56:52] Our office, every conference room is full every day as they're negotiating those terms

[56:56] and you'll see things happening in the next few weeks.

[56:59] The contract with Siemens was signed in spring of 2024.

[57:03] Siemens, we also have a Buy America project, but we do have a Buy America waiver for

[57:09] the first set of trains, the first two.

[57:11] They will be built in Germany.

[57:14] Our engineers, our union leaders have been going over there to learn how to build a train.

[57:19] When they come back, we have a facility, or Siemens, out of the facility in Horses Bay of New York,

[57:23] upstate New York, which is very familiar. Siemens had a factory there previously.

[57:29] That's where our trains will be built.

[57:31] The four parts for the contractors, civil infrastructure, tracking system, rolling stock,

[57:36] which is Siemens, and then our other project costs.

[57:38] So as you see below, we have stations in Las Vegas, Victor Valley,

[57:43] Hesperia, and Southern California. But we also have vehicle maintenance facilities.

[57:47] One is in Sloan, Nevada, and the other is right outside Victor Valley and

[57:51] Apple Valley.

[57:55] The work zones, we've labeled them Nevada civil, California

[57:59] civil north, California civil middle, California civil south. I have to tell

[58:04] people in Nevada that only 34 miles of the train is actually in Nevada. The

[58:08] majority of it is in California and they're very surprised. I'm like, you know the distance

[58:12] you should have this figured out. But these are the areas in the segment and how we'll

[58:17] work on the development of the train.

[58:23] The Las Vegas station, we actually own 110 acres

[58:27] where we're putting the station. The station will only take about 20 acres. So transit

[58:31] oriented development will go on the other 90 acres. In Miami, we did something

[58:36] very similar. When we came in, we have where our station is, but we built up

[58:41] some of it we built ourselves, some we sold.

[58:44] We brought a grocery store to the area.

[58:46] They hadn't had one in over 40 years,

[58:48] but really worked with the local community to see what was needed.

[58:51] And I don't have the slide on this one,

[58:53] but if you see the footprint of where they were at before we came

[58:57] and where they're at now, it really spurred development for the area.

[59:03] Here is what it will look like on the Las Vegas side.

[59:06] You'll see the green of our station at kind of the gateway to the strip.

[59:09] We know that folks are coming in to spend time on the strip.

[59:12] but we're close to the airport.

[59:14] We're close to the future airport multimodal center.

[59:17] You can't see it on this map, but there is talk of another airport in Nevada,

[59:21] the Ivanpah Airport.

[59:22] We're in those discussions to make sure we can connect there, too.

[59:26] Allegiant Stadium, where the Las Vegas Raiders play.

[59:29] Forgive us.

[59:30] That is the A's of the last team.

[59:32] We're not taking any more teams from California, but also the A Stadium.

[59:37] I'm sorry.

[59:39] I know.

[59:40] We're done.

[59:40] we're done. Basketball teams can be an all-new team. We're told. We're told. But just showing

[59:46] that people are going to be able to connect. And beyond just being able to connect, we're

[59:50] creating opportunities. We're working with casinos where you can book every and we're

[59:55] working with Uber and Lyft. So from your phone, you'll be able to book your ticket,

[59:58] your uber

[1:00:01] All through one ticket.

[1:00:03] So you're not out there standing around.

[1:00:05] I know if you've been at the airport.

[1:00:06] I purposely did not fly into LAX just because of that Uber situation.

[1:00:10] I'm like, let me go somewhere else where I can move a little quicker.

[1:00:13] But we want to make sure it's an experience.

[1:00:15] And it helps your experience if you're not stressed out trying to navigate a maneuver.

[1:00:20] So the casinos are excited.

[1:00:22] The conferences that are coming to town, everybody's looking forward to how we can make that seamless.

[1:00:28] For our high desert stations.

[1:00:29] So these are what we call our inline stations.

[1:00:33] They're a little smaller.

[1:00:34] We've also purchased land around them that will be developed.

[1:00:38] You'll see the Victor Valley one around Dell Evans Parkway.

[1:00:42] I've gone out and I've taken pictures and stood in the desert.

[1:00:45] And so we know that that's going to be a big change,

[1:00:48] but we want it to look and fit where it's at.

[1:00:50] So if you see our Florida stations, they fit the area they're in.

[1:00:54] The West Palm Beach Station is my favorite.

[1:00:56] It's small, it's kind of nestled in the community, but it really fits what's happening there,

[1:01:01] so we want to make sure we do that.

[1:01:04] Hesperia, SBCTA, when we were doing this project and we had our conversation, we needed an

[1:01:09] extra lane, and they gave us that lane, and in exchange for that, we agreed to do the

[1:01:14] Hesperia Station, which is more of a commuter station.

[1:01:17] So we have designated train travel allowed in the morning and the afternoon to get

[1:01:21] people to and from work on that station.

[1:01:27] The Southern California station, which is our Rancho Cucabunga station, the multimodal hub, say that five times.

[1:01:34] Our station will be built directly over MetroLink.

[1:01:38] So the idea is similar to when you're on the East Coast and you just take the escalator down to the next level and get on the train.

[1:01:44] That's what you'll have with us.

[1:01:46] Same thing.

[1:01:47] You'll be able to book your ticket, one ticket.

[1:01:49] We will synchronize the schedules so that you don't have to wait a long time.

[1:01:53] You get there, you go down, get on the train.

[1:01:55] Like I said, single ticket integrated ride.

[1:01:57] We'll be doing joint branding.

[1:02:00] Of course, we'll have the high speed rail bright line trains.

[1:02:03] But once you get there, we want to make sure bright line is still represented.

[1:02:06] So we're working with them on that.

[1:02:09] Also, the parking structure, 3,700 spaces.

[1:02:12] Each site has a lot of parking because we know people want to park and ride.

[1:02:16] So all of our stations have a lot of parking.

[1:02:21] American manufacturing, to date, we're already working with 50 suppliers in 28 states across

[1:02:26] the United States to include Puerto Rico.

[1:02:30] The ideas we're taking by America seriously, if you have folks, if you go to our webpage

[1:02:34] on BrightlineWest.com, you scroll down and it's the interested subcontractor vendor.

[1:02:40] Click on that and people can complete the link.

[1:02:43] When they do that, every Friday that link goes to all of our contractors.

[1:02:47] So as they're sourcing different vendors and things, they have a list to go from.

[1:02:51] Also, I've asked them when they're doing events to reach out to that list

[1:02:55] and make sure those people are aware of what's happening so that they can attend

[1:02:58] and get more information on how they can participate.

[1:03:03] And then the last slide is just our contact information.

[1:03:06] I always highlight our social media because people create their own social media

[1:03:10] about our project.

[1:03:11] If you go on YouTube, you're going to see lots of folks who have nothing to do with us,

[1:03:15] but they've created their own social media, so I want people to know where they can get

[1:03:19] the correct information.

[1:03:21] As it relates to traffic and things and construction as we get started, we're working with both

[1:03:27] Caltrans and INDOT in Nevada to tap into the systems they already use so you can find

[1:03:32] out, you can go to Twitter and see where we're going to be if anything's coming

[1:03:36] out.

[1:03:36] We're doing a robust outreach program, everything from community meetings to even door knocking

[1:03:43] in some areas because we want people to know before. Having worked for elected officials most of my

[1:03:48] career, I know they're the ones to get hit with all the questions and so we want to remove that.

[1:03:54] Even sitting down with them, I had a meeting yesterday and I remember who it was with but

[1:03:58] we said, listen, we know you're going to get questions. Here are some answers,

[1:04:02] but also please refer them to us so they can hear from us directly. People make up lots of

[1:04:07] things and they hear lots of stuff in the news and make it what they think it is,

[1:04:11] but we want folks to hear from us.

[1:04:13] So that is all I have.

[1:04:15] I can take some questions.

[1:04:16] Thank you very much for your presentation.

[1:04:18] First will be Supervisor Spiegel.

[1:04:23] I'm very excited for this.

[1:04:25] I had the opportunity to be there for the groundbreaking.

[1:04:27] Good.

[1:04:28] So I even had my little, the spoke, the yellow, yeah.

[1:04:35] My question is, I'm just a little concerned

[1:04:38] and I'm sure it's taken care of

[1:04:40] because you talked about – you've already met with SBTA and talking to them about – SBCA – about share and stuff, going down the median.

[1:04:51] And in Riverside, we have express lanes up to the median.

[1:04:55] And I'm thinking that you guys are continuing that.

[1:04:59] That's still the plan, right?

[1:05:03] Actually, no. Well, not all the way up there, we're using this instead. They're going to

[1:05:07] be picking up that amount of capacity and using it. That's important to you.

[1:05:12] I want to make sure that the record is clear, Mr. Chair, if members of the committee could

[1:05:15] activate their mic so that we have a clear record. Thank you.

[1:05:20] Basically, SPCT has an agreement with Brightline that they're going to pick up the capacity

[1:05:25] we would have had we added the other lights.

[1:05:27] Okay. I just know that ours with the toll would be limited if you wanted to go further down.

[1:05:34] So planning for these kind of things in the future, you've taken that ability out,

[1:05:38] but if they've already made that agreement, I'm not a happy camper, but that's okay.

[1:05:44] So that was my bigger concern. I had another note here, and I'm trying to find what I did with it.

[1:05:49] Anyway, if I find it, I'll raise my hand again.

[1:05:51] Okay.

[1:05:52] Thank you.

[1:05:53] Thank you.

[1:05:54] Commissioner Marquez?

[1:05:56] Ray?

[1:05:56] I'm sorry.

[1:05:57] Thank you, sir.

[1:05:57] Appreciate that.

[1:05:58] Aasha, great presentation.

[1:05:59] Thank you.

[1:06:00] Good to see you again.

[1:06:00] Question for you.

[1:06:01] Commuters from the high desert coming down.

[1:06:03] Is there going to be like a specific price for them or are they going to have to pay

[1:06:06] the full fare?

[1:06:07] No.

[1:06:07] They'll be a specific price and we're working to make it comparable to metro link pricing.

[1:06:13] We know that people are on their way to work and it's a commuter rail.

[1:06:16] So we're taking that in as we're building the pricing.

[1:06:19] So we're hearing somewhere around $10, $12 maybe.

[1:06:23] Perfect.

[1:06:24] Good.

[1:06:24] Since Mr. Waffner is up there, is there going to be a seamless way to fly into, say, Ontario

[1:06:30] Airport and get to the station at Rancho?

[1:06:33] Is there anything happening?

[1:06:34] We are in discussions for that now.

[1:06:37] And I can get back to you directly on where they're at, but they are having those conversations.

[1:06:42] So I will follow up because I'm not completely aware of the detail of them, but I can get

[1:06:46] it.

[1:06:47] How about Mr. Waffner?

[1:06:48] Can you share with us on the tunneling?

[1:06:49] Well, yeah, the tunneling.

[1:06:51] You should show that on your map, obviously.

[1:06:53] The tunnel.

[1:06:54] is building a tunnel directly from the Kookamunga metro station into the

[1:06:57] Ontario. Yes, I knew that it just wasn't front of my. Thank you.

[1:07:06] Steve Sanchez,

[1:07:09] thank

[1:07:10] you for that great presentation. I just have a quick question about power.

[1:07:13] You said it's all electric. We could bear it. A lot of places that have been

[1:07:17] rolled in blackouts and you know. Yes. How does this all get empowered? Where does

[1:07:21] it get powered from? Do you get the power from each jurisdiction you drive by?

[1:07:24] Or is it coming from? So we're building three transmission stations in

[1:07:27] California and one in Nevada and then our trains the way they're set up they

[1:07:31] power themselves as they move so those transmission stations will be more for

[1:07:35] the VMS and then the other facilities used to keep us moving okay good thank

[1:07:42] you next is a mr. Wapner

[1:07:47] okay then thank you mr. Chair thank you for the

[1:07:57] presentation. Two questions. Timeline, did you talk a little bit more about

[1:08:01] operation? And then you heard the previous presentation. You want to take

[1:08:06] them over, maybe speed them up and keep it more in cost with that. No, no, no. We

[1:08:10] are all family. We're all family. We're bringing high-speed rail to the Southwest

[1:08:15] first. I will say timeline. Originally, we were really trying to meet the

[1:08:19] Olympics here in LA and that is not going to happen. While we were awarded

[1:08:23] the grant in December of 23. If you've ever negotiated with the federal government, you

[1:08:28] know that takes time. So we did not get the signed contract with them until September

[1:08:32] of 24. So that kind of pushed us back. So now we're looking at Lake 28. Similar to what

[1:08:39] Ladonna was saying with the testing area, we're building that. That's one of the

[1:08:43] things that will be built first because there is an exhaustive amount of testing

[1:08:48] that has to happen. So you'll see trains moving before you see them moving with

[1:08:53] people on them because we have to go through that testing process, but late 28th.

[1:08:57] Three to five years to get at this project done?

[1:09:01] We're saying three from when we start, yes.

[1:09:04] Which is, compared to the 20th?

[1:09:07] Okay.

[1:09:07] It's a different setup.

[1:09:09] It's a different setup.

[1:09:10] We're family.

[1:09:12] All right.

[1:09:13] Okay.

[1:09:14] Thank you.

[1:09:15] Moving to online.

[1:09:16] Carol Moore.

[1:09:17] Yes.

[1:09:18] My question, thanks also for your presentation, and we're excited.

[1:09:23] My question has to do, again, with the technology, you're using a single rail.

[1:09:29] And to help us understand as things go forward, because technology changes, does that limit the types of trains that you can have?

[1:09:39] Could you address that?

[1:09:40] Thank you.

[1:09:41] So we're committed to the train that's being developed specifically for us.

[1:09:46] The one that's coming from Siemens, they know what kind of rail we're going to have.

[1:09:50] We're hoping that this will be, you know, the kind of the rail of the future as we move forward.

[1:09:54] So I don't know, and they are taking into consideration what California High Speed Rail

[1:09:59] and other projects are doing that they'll be able to be interactive.

[1:10:02] But as it stands now, our trains will operate on our rails the way it's set up,

[1:10:08] and it is the height of technology, which is why they're being built in Germany first,

[1:10:13] because that is where this is happening.

[1:10:15] You know, trains all over Europe and Asia are kind of ahead of us here.

[1:10:19] So we went there to get the best technology and then built something that worked for us here

[1:10:24] When I first came on and I was like how are we going to do trains in the heat and do that and they were like

[1:10:29] Well, you know, we have trains across the Middle East. I was like, okay point taken

[1:10:33] Those are this much more heat than we're used to so from weather conditions to even how we you know

[1:10:39] Go up the hills. They had to remind me

[1:10:41] I've been on trains in Europe and they showed me the terrain and I was like, oh, okay

[1:10:45] I didn't realize it because I was on the train

[1:10:47] But they are at the height of technology now.

[1:10:50] We know that things continue to grow,

[1:10:52] but we're focused on what we have now

[1:10:54] and what's coming over the next few years.

[1:10:56] And it is the single rail.

[1:10:58] Yes.

[1:10:59] Thank you.

[1:11:01] Marshall McLean.

[1:11:03] Hi, Aasha.

[1:11:03] I just want to say it was such a pleasure to have lunch with you

[1:11:06] in the desert.

[1:11:08] And thank you for this presentation.

[1:11:10] I thought it was really great.

[1:11:12] I look forward to the train.

[1:11:14] And I have kind of the same comment.

[1:11:18] I was going to ask, when was this idea first brought about?

[1:11:24] And then the funding that you have is completed.

[1:11:28] You have all the funding for it?

[1:11:29] Yes.

[1:11:30] So this idea, I joke about this, having grown up in Vegas,

[1:11:33] I heard about this my whole life.

[1:11:35] The Marnell family in Las Vegas, they're in construction.

[1:11:38] They built a lot of the hotels that you've seen.

[1:11:40] It was their initial idea as a family that this should happen.

[1:11:44] Brightline came in, I believe it was 2020.

[1:11:47] And I want to say we were the fourth or the fifth company to actually own the project.

[1:11:51] So it's been around for 25 years.

[1:11:54] Andrew on our team, he has been around since the beginning.

[1:11:57] And so he's with us, but he's been around since it was discussed.

[1:12:00] It was supposed to stop in Victorville.

[1:12:02] When Brightline came on, they realized that that was not enough,

[1:12:05] and they added the rancho link.

[1:12:08] So this is something that's been talked about.

[1:12:10] It's been, you know, everybody goes in and puts theirs on it, so Brightline, given the history they had in Florida, were perfectly suited to do it.

[1:12:18] In terms of our funding, so we started with the federal money, the 3.5.

[1:12:22] We were able to solidify that.

[1:12:24] Once that was done, we went out for our private activity bonds.

[1:12:28] We have, I believe it's 5.5 billion, do not quote me, don't say that, 3.5 billion that we have.

[1:12:35] We sold 2.5 billion in March, so that is set aside and ready to go.

[1:12:40] We're holding on to the other billion for later in the project because once you initiate them, you have a window you have to use them in.

[1:12:46] So we're waiting for those.

[1:12:48] And then the remaining is our bank financing, which is what we're doing right now.

[1:12:52] All those things had to take place before we could go to the banks.

[1:12:55] So in the coming weeks, you will hear that that has wrapped and you'll hear those terms.

[1:13:00] The way this is set up, we must have all our money before we start.

[1:13:04] So it's not a matter in Florida.

[1:13:06] We were able to raise money and build and raise money and build.

[1:13:08] But with this, we have to have every dime in before we can actually start construction.

[1:13:14] And so we're very confident it's coming soon.

[1:13:17] I don't like to give dates.

[1:13:18] But I'm very soon and we're expecting to see some construction late this summer.

[1:13:22] So that'll give you kind of a window.

[1:13:24] Good concept to have your money.

[1:13:27] And then you can build and it will be done.

[1:13:30] Anyway, thank you for being here.

[1:13:31] It was a pleasure to meet you.

[1:13:34] Yes, I enjoyed our lunch.

[1:13:36] Commissioner Wu, are you good?

[1:13:40] A really quick clarification.

[1:13:43] You mentioned a single rail.

[1:13:45] It's a single track with two rails, right?

[1:13:48] An overhead part of the plan.

[1:13:49] It's an overhead catenary.

[1:13:51] It's a single rail.

[1:13:52] And so you may get me on the technical side.

[1:13:54] That's why I try to defer to my engineers.

[1:13:56] I know that it is a double rail for a different segment,

[1:13:58] but it is single for the majority of it.

[1:14:03] Now I can go do a deeper dive and get some more information too.

[1:14:06] Single rail, similar to the monorail?

[1:14:11] Sure. Which monorail?

[1:14:14] Which monorail thing?

[1:14:16] Well the monorail in Las Vegas.

[1:14:17] The one in Vegas?

[1:14:18] Yeah, in Las Vegas.

[1:14:20] Oh.

[1:14:20] Only one rail.

[1:14:21] Single track has two rails.

[1:14:24] Single rail.

[1:14:25] Let me go back to my slide.

[1:14:26] Commissioner, will you try to get me?

[1:14:28] Hold on.

[1:14:29] Yeah, I feel the slide is showing two rails with the overhead as far as the flag.

[1:14:34] So there'll be one train at a time.

[1:14:37] Now what that looks like, you see on here, those cutouts are where it becomes a double.

[1:14:43] So when we say single or one, I don't want to misspeak.

[1:14:45] So if I can get that back to you, I can do that today.

[1:14:48] Don't, don't, don't kick me yet.

[1:14:50] No, I'm kidding.

[1:14:53] Anybody besides Chairman Wood.

[1:14:55] We're good.

[1:14:55] Okay.

[1:14:56] Well, thank you very much for your presentation.

[1:14:57] We're going to.

[1:14:58] Thank you.

[1:14:59] And I will get the.

[1:15:00] Back to you today. I'll get your information. All right. Take care. Excuse me. We're going to

[1:15:07] move on to item number nine, Southern California zero emissions truck infrastructure studies,

[1:15:10] findings and final report. Jonathan Raspow will be presenting this.

[1:15:20] Good morning, everyone.

[1:15:23] Good to see you all again.

[1:15:26] Okay.

[1:15:28] No.

[1:15:29] Yeah.

[1:15:35] Just kidding.

[1:15:36] It's actually going to be me with the smart city, the mobility program update.

[1:15:40] Beautiful.

[1:15:41] Okay.

[1:15:41] Well, thanks, everyone.

[1:15:42] Good morning, chair and commission.

[1:15:44] I am a chair and committee.

[1:15:46] I'm happy to be here today.

[1:15:47] My name is Marissa Ladrak.

[1:15:48] And I will be talking a little bit about our smart city.

[1:15:51] and Mobility Innovations Program, which just wrapped up in our upcoming Sustainable Communities

[1:15:57] Program as well.

[1:15:59] So to recap, provide a little bit of an update on where we are, how we've got here.

[1:16:04] So a lot of these things on the slide are going to look familiar to you.

[1:16:06] All of these are a lot of the really great efforts that we've brought to the committee

[1:16:10] in a couple of previous fiscal years.

[1:16:12] This includes everything from our clean transportation technology policy to our

[1:16:17] Clean Technology Compendium, our goods movement partnership, such as the Zero Mission Truck

[1:16:22] Infrastructure Study, which you'll hear about here shortly, including some of the things

[1:16:27] we've been doing for our Clean Cities Coalition, and as well as the pilot programs and technology

[1:16:31] demonstrations that I'll be talking about today, one of which was our Sustainable

[1:16:35] Communities Program, Smart Cities and Mobility Innovations Program.

[1:16:39] So taking all of us back to 2020 here, the last time when we had our Regional

[1:16:45] transportation plan at Sustainable Community Strategy or Connect SoCal adopted back in 2020.

[1:16:51] This was what launched our funding cycle for these types of projects and programs. So

[1:16:56] back in 2020, based on Connect SoCal that was implemented at that time,

[1:17:01] this is the main vehicle here, the Sustainable Communities Program that we used to provide

[1:17:05] technical assistance and funding for our communities here at SCAC. So this was that

[1:17:10] vehicle that we used and the third call that we did for projects was for our Smart

[1:17:13] city than mobility innovation, then you can see that there were a couple other categories there too

[1:17:17] for active transportation, housing, and engagement. So as far as our call was concerned, we were

[1:17:23] really interested in smart cities and job centers, GoZones, and shared mobility and mobility of the

[1:17:28] service, and specifically looking at anywhere where we could use technology and innovation to

[1:17:33] help us with our mobility ecosystem. So that being said, we had these three project types,

[1:17:38] focusing on curbspace, data collection and inventory,

[1:17:42] also technology assessment or adoption,

[1:17:44] and then our parking management plans.

[1:17:47] And here are the different awards that we have,

[1:17:49] and these are all things that we've brought to you,

[1:17:51] provided updates on before,

[1:17:52] but happy to report that all of the projects

[1:17:54] have now concluded, and here are the eight projects.

[1:17:57] I'm gonna run through them all pretty quickly

[1:17:58] because I don't have a lot of time,

[1:18:00] but I did wanna bring some attention

[1:18:02] to all the things that we found in these great projects.

[1:18:04] So in the city of Rialto,

[1:18:06] We were looking at existing warehousing and logistic conditions.

[1:18:09] We were looking at the costs and benefits and technology and policy-based solutions.

[1:18:14] So the warehousing and logistics plan focused on the adopted truck routes and the residential

[1:18:18] areas that were along those routes, and we were really looking at what could be done

[1:18:22] in the first and last miles of trips to help change things.

[1:18:26] And this provided us with an implementation plan for a pilot project and included

[1:18:30] everything from the goals, policies, and programs for those regulatory changes.

[1:18:34] And we're really looking to do things like reduce traffic congestion, reduce pavement degradation, improve traffic safety, and reduce air pollution, saving fuel costs, things like that.

[1:18:47] Now, for the cities of Los Angeles, Long Beach and Stanton, they were all doing curb data collection and inventory.

[1:18:54] And this was really intended to build off of SCAGS 2022 curb space management strategy.

[1:18:59] Now this study resulted in a pilot project and associated work plan for each of the three cities.

[1:19:04] And this allowed us to explore a variety of pilot concepts, which included things like flex zones, computer vision camera, the automated

[1:19:12] enforcement, pricing for certain types of short term parking, and even real time dynamic pricing to help adjust for on street rates based on supply and demand.

[1:19:20] And then the three recommended pilots we have for the City of LA.

[1:19:24] It's the Westwood Neighborhood Flex Zone.

[1:19:26] For Long Beach, it is the Automated Enforcement Pilot Program.

[1:19:30] And for Stanton, it is a permit parking program update.

[1:19:34] Now for San Gabriel Valley and their Council of Governments,

[1:19:37] we were working on an evaluation for their GO SGV Bike Share Program.

[1:19:42] For those of you who might not be familiar,

[1:19:44] that's a long-term bike share program that allows San Gabriel Valley residents

[1:19:47] to rent an e-bike for an extended period providing a low emission alternative to driving.

[1:19:53] Now, there are no e-bike share stations, but rather residents can join the program at partner locations

[1:19:59] and then they receive an e-bike for several months.

[1:20:02] ActiveSGV has a fleet of 828 e-bikes and 12 e-cargo bikes,

[1:20:07] and that's the nonprofit that runs this.

[1:20:09] So that's the fleet size we were working with.

[1:20:11] We were able to see that two-thirds of the participants confirmed that they like using their e-bike

[1:20:16] to replace vehicle trips. So I think that really does emphasize the impact of what these bike share

[1:20:21] programs can be. They can be popular in replacing those trips. And the outcome of this project helps

[1:20:25] SCAG and active SGV better understand and optimize the bike share program to better increase

[1:20:31] participation and then shift those trip behaviors. Now for Desert Hot Springs they were looking

[1:20:37] at a downtown and light industrial parking plan and this really focused on the existing and

[1:20:41] conditions, particularly for downtown and their industrial cannabis districts.

[1:20:46] Now, this plan identified short-term and long-term strategies for consideration and exploration.

[1:20:51] Some of these short-term strategies include things like repealing minimum parking requirements,

[1:20:56] facilitating shared public parking, discouraging unshared parking,

[1:21:01] and supporting walking, biking, and shared mobility solutions.

[1:21:04] But then there's also a range of longer-term strategies that were identified,

[1:21:08] things like managing parking demand, parking pricing based on demand, investing in new parking technology,

[1:21:15] creating a parking benefit district, and preparing to manage the public parking with dedicated city or contract staff.

[1:21:23] As far as garden grow, we were looking at curb data here, but it was really a parking type of project.

[1:21:30] So we're looking at curb and parking here.

[1:21:33] The project explored parking management and mapping of the curb in six different study areas.

[1:21:39] And these all either focused on areas where there was a lot of overutilization of parking or underutilization.

[1:21:45] So looking at that, local residents have been experiencing parking challenges in some neighborhoods.

[1:21:50] And seeing that some of the street segments did have a parking utilization rate that exceeded 85%,

[1:21:55] it was pretty clear that interventions and strategies would be necessary to alleviate these challenges.

[1:22:02] And the city worked really closely with residents and completed extensive engagement to ensure

[1:22:06] that the recommended menu of planning and policy options are supported by the community.

[1:22:11] And these include things like continuing efforts to increase enforcement of the existing parking

[1:22:16] regulations, looking at establishing a residential permit or residential parking permit in RPP

[1:22:22] district, facilitating shared parking agreements, establishing transportation demand management

[1:22:28] or TDM requirements for new residential developments and then potentially implementing a comprehensive

[1:22:33] traffic reduction and transportation improvement fee.

[1:22:38] And then lastly for the city of Laguna Woods,

[1:22:40] we were looking at identifying a path towards connected and autonomous vehicle or CAV

[1:22:46] readiness. So this helped us to envision a potential operation of an AV pilot program within

[1:22:52] the city. This approach involves three phases with the focus on scalability for the SCAG

[1:22:57] region. The first phase was designed to provide independent value regardless of other city-approved

[1:23:02] AV pilot services. So we're really looking at improved infrastructure and mobility

[1:23:07] and things that can help interface with AV operations in the long run. So this included

[1:23:12] concepts like mobility hubs, roadway alterations, mobility on demand platforms, enhanced network

[1:23:18] connectivity and signal controllers and detectors. And then the second phase would be launching

[1:23:23] a small-scale AV service along two main arterial roadways in the city.

[1:23:27] And this includes performance measurement framework and a couple of other things in the plan

[1:23:32] that can help us measure the program's effectiveness across several different variables,

[1:23:36] which include financial success, sustainability, safety, ridership, and more.

[1:23:41] So if successful and with available funding, they would be moving on to a third phase to expand.

[1:23:47] And then just lastly, we want to also emphasize that we do have some other upcoming smart cities program

[1:23:52] Some of you may be aware, but we are planning to release a smart city strategic plan RFP

[1:23:57] in the coming few months.

[1:23:59] We're really looking to bring together all this great work that we've been doing to comprehensively

[1:24:04] help us outline and advance our efforts, moving forward for what smart technology can be,

[1:24:09] how we integrate that, what other approaches we can be taking.

[1:24:13] And then additionally, you know, we just implemented 2024 Connect SoCal.

[1:24:18] We're looking at kicking off another sustainable community program right around the corner.

[1:24:23] So thinking about other ways that we can be providing technical assistance and funding and resources to your community,

[1:24:29] we will be doing another call for smart cities or mobility type projects.

[1:24:33] And we're still very much in program development here in the early stages.

[1:24:37] So this is the perfect time for us to be bringing this information to you and for us to collaborate together to better shape that program.

[1:24:43] So that way, you know, everybody can get some easy wins there as well.

[1:24:47] So that is it for me. My contact information is here, and hopefully we have a few minutes for questions. Thank you.

[1:24:53] Thank you for the presentation. Very good.

[1:24:58] Okay. We'll now entertain some of the members of the Transportation Committee and we'll go as Councilor Sanchez.

[1:25:05] Thank you for that. Quick question on your eBike program. Is that the same as, like, Lyme and Bird just at the government-sponsored level?

[1:25:14] Or is it similar or different or?

[1:25:17] Great question.

[1:25:19] They are similar, but I would say I think the biggest – well, there's two big differences.

[1:25:23] One, this particular program doesn't have shared bicycle docking stations or lockers

[1:25:29] or anything like that.

[1:25:30] So there is a bit more of – a bit more requirement for the program partners that

[1:25:35] have folks come in, take their applications, and then provide them with the bike, right?

[1:25:39] So there's a little bit more, I would say, government support needed there.

[1:25:43] And then the thing that also makes it a little bit different from Uber and line bikes and things like that is the pricing structure, right?

[1:25:49] So this being a program run by a nonprofit and with the support of the city, they're able to subsidize the prices so that lower income folks, students, folks under six or over 65 things like that.

[1:26:01] They can use these bikes at a lower price point than what you would typically be able to do on bikes, you know, with Lyft or Lyme or Uber or any of them.

[1:26:10] So, I think those are the two big differences.

[1:26:15] Thank you very much.

[1:26:17] Anybody online?

[1:26:18] All right, nobody's online.

[1:26:20] Thanks very much for your presentation.

[1:26:23] Sorry, I have my script flipped, so now we're going to move to item number.

[1:26:27] It'll be item 10.

[1:26:30] Our zero mission is truck infrastructure studies and findings.

[1:26:34] I'm back.

[1:26:36] I'll try that again. Good morning, everyone. Good to be back here presenting.

[1:26:40] Do I have control yet?

[1:26:46] There we go.

[1:26:47] So I'm Jonathan Raspa.

[1:26:48] I'm a senior regional planner.

[1:26:50] What is going on here?

[1:26:52] And the project manager for the ZETI project.

[1:26:54] This is our final report out on this project.

[1:26:57] So I'm glad to come back to you and talk to you about what we've been doing in the last couple of months.

[1:27:01] So right away I'm just going to jump right into the results of this project.

[1:27:05] A lot of the questions are around, you know, what's coming out of the simulation?

[1:27:08] What does the analysis tell us?

[1:27:09] What do we need to start building for?

[1:27:14] So right here, this map here shows charging needs in 2030 for public peak hour demand.

[1:27:21] That's really important, the way these sites are developed.

[1:27:23] You don't need to try to build out a site that meets all of the demand all of once,

[1:27:27] but only enough capacity to meet peak demand, right,

[1:27:30] when you have the most power required to charge as many trucks,

[1:27:33] say, in that one hour or two hour period.

[1:27:35] So keep that in mind.

[1:27:37] This is public charging sites and their peak demand.

[1:27:41] So our energy modeling produced both peak hour energy demand as well as total energy requirements.

[1:27:47] But again, we're going to focus on peak demand since that's the primary constraint for developing these sites and what the grid needs to supply to them.

[1:27:54] That really drives the number of charges you need on the site, how many trucks you can actually service, how large the site needs to be, et cetera.

[1:28:02] So this map for 2030 is primarily focused around the Draage and Intermodal Activity Centers.

[1:28:08] You can see Los Angeles, the Inland Empire, sort of North LA County as well.

[1:28:12] Are they going to be the first markets to electrify?

[1:28:15] Because that's where those truck operators are, where they're making their deliveries, their pickups, and operating.

[1:28:21] So there's also a really big emphasis on medium-duty fleets.

[1:28:24] This is primarily business-to-business activity, last-mile deliveries.

[1:28:29] They're really more active in the urbanized areas, shorter trips, easier to electrify,

[1:28:33] a really good opportunity in the near term to, you know, convert some of those truck

[1:28:37] trips from diesel or gasoline to electric.

[1:28:39] So that's also another quick win here.

[1:28:42] And a lot of this initial capacity that's not on the public side that's going to

[1:28:45] be private depots, they're standing up this additional truck charging capacity on

[1:28:50] their own.

[1:28:51] It's private dollars, they're doing this, it's behind the fence.

[1:28:54] There are some opportunities for shared sites, but a lot of them are not going

[1:28:58] to be kind of like your typical gas station where any truck can just drive up and use

[1:29:02] it.

[1:29:02] They need to be part of a consortium, maybe have a membership or actually a truck that's

[1:29:06] operated by that fleet before they can use that charger.

[1:29:12] So then 2035, we kind of see some of that demand and capacity start to expand.

[1:29:17] It roughly doubles in the next five years as more fleets electrify, longer distances

[1:29:23] become possible with different technology changes, additional grid capacity coming

[1:29:28] online. It primarily grows north towards the I-5 and some of the longer range kind of line haul

[1:29:36] corridors out towards eastern California. So along the 10, along the 15, not really getting kind

[1:29:42] of way out there towards the Nevada state line or Arizona. And we do see a little bit more growth

[1:29:46] at the border crossings. There's other plans in Baja California to build out some electric

[1:29:51] charging corridors in that country. And so there's going to be good interconnectivity there

[1:29:55] where they can either charge at the border or finish their crossing and charge in Mexico.

[1:30:00] And then, you know, make their return trip. So, but we're not quite at, you know, every

[1:30:05] truck being electrified by 2035. And then by 2040, we basically see it double

[1:30:11] again. So, again, that public peak hour capacity demand, just to throw a number out there, is

[1:30:16] about 12 gigawatts of power. This is actually a pretty small amount of power relative to

[1:30:22] what California produces and is able to supply on a daily basis. But again, the challenge

[1:30:27] is managing that peak demand in tandem with all of the other markets and industries and

[1:30:31] sectors that use electricity, sometimes at the same time that trucks need it. At this point,

[1:30:36] long-haul corridors are fully developed by 2040, so you're going to see a lot of increased demand

[1:30:42] at some of these major junction points along the 15, I40, I10, a lot more activity at the

[1:30:48] southern border. We don't include San Diego here in our analysis, but there's quite a bit

[1:30:52] more activity there as well at their border crossings.

[1:30:56] A lot of the demand really peaks in urbanized areas.

[1:30:59] Again, you can't forget about last mile delivery, package delivery, business to business activity,

[1:31:04] even some of the sort of transfer moves that happen between the ports, the warehouses

[1:31:08] and different facilities that a business would be operating.

[1:31:11] And then again, the warehousing districts in the inland empire and further east also

[1:31:15] see a lot of growth as all of their equipment, right, in yard, short deliveries and then

[1:31:20] long-haul operations are electrifying.

[1:31:22] And it's important to understand that about 70% of that public demand that is going to

[1:31:27] need to be supported is for long-haul operators and some of the regional trucks that don't

[1:31:33] have a depot to charge at.

[1:31:34] So they're going to be most dependent on that, those public sites.

[1:31:38] Private depots are going to supply a lot of the private fleets, you know, who go

[1:31:42] back and recharge at night or have depot sites or maintenance sites along their

[1:31:45] routes to charge at, as well as drage operators.

[1:31:47] They've got a lot of opportunities to charge with shorter range requirements than the long-haul

[1:31:52] sector that is really the biggest challenge here.

[1:31:56] These are all of the numbers for all the counties.

[1:31:59] Here we're showing total energy demand.

[1:32:01] This is in megawatts, but just to round up, you can just take that first number.

[1:32:06] So in 2030, we're going to need a total of 5.8 gigawatts of power to charge all of

[1:32:12] the trucks, and about 2.5 gigawatts of that will be required for public sites.

[1:32:16] You know, again, those long-haul operators, you know, early depots that aren't able to electrify in 2030,

[1:32:21] and then we sort of double just about to 13.1 gigawatts.

[1:32:25] This is kind of the biggest growth period that we see right here as a lot of fleets are required to come online.

[1:32:30] This does take into account things like ACF and ACT, which when we did the modeling,

[1:32:35] had not had their waivers withdrawn or, you know, sort of weren't in, like, a legislative or legal gray area the way they are now.

[1:32:41] And then out in 2040, we see a total of 21.2 gigawatts for all of that charging and about 12 needed for public sites.

[1:32:49] Again, a lot of that energy demand out in 2040 and beyond, it's those long haul trucks, right?

[1:32:54] They need to fully deplete their battery and then fully charge at that site again and then go pretty much as far as they can.

[1:33:01] We do take into account some things like range extension and technology improvements, but we were pretty conservative there.

[1:33:08] I think less than 5% sort of 2030, 2035, 2040 where battery capacity is increasing, charging

[1:33:14] speeds are increasing, and range is extending.

[1:33:16] We want it to be not overly optimistic about the technology improving just because all

[1:33:22] of the fleets that are buying this equipment, they don't go out and buy new trucks every

[1:33:25] year.

[1:33:26] In some cases, they're getting 10 or 15 or 20 years out of some of these trucks.

[1:33:30] Some of it goes into the secondary market, but it doesn't happen overnight.

[1:33:33] So the other thing that's really interesting is that utilities in the last couple of years

[1:33:39] with early deployments have really learned how to deliver this to truck fleets.

[1:33:44] These are parties that are not used to talking to each other.

[1:33:48] Operators have no idea who to call, what information is needed when they go to talk to utility.

[1:33:53] And the utilities don't really know what the needs of some of these truckers are.

[1:33:56] And so they're sort of both learning from each other as they deliver some of these early sites.

[1:34:00] And those lessons are being applied.

[1:34:01] So power delivery, while not perfect, should see some improvements as far as like timelines

[1:34:07] of the amount of energy they're able to deliver and how they can sort of meet needs with

[1:34:11] managing demand on the grid.

[1:34:16] Okay, so this is another important slide.

[1:34:18] So we're sort of drilling down here into San Bernardino County and looking at all of

[1:34:21] the potential site locations in that particular county.

[1:34:24] There's a lot of different ways you can implement this charging.

[1:34:27] The region could prioritize a small number of high-power sites that can charge trucks quickly, turn them around, get them off site and get moving.

[1:34:37] They could also focus on lower-power chargers, which have more space requirements, maybe a little bit kind of less peak demand, but it would need to change the operational patterns of the truck.

[1:34:46] So a lot of that depends on what kind of lands available, what kind of grid capacity is available.

[1:34:51] It's sort of what the goals of the jurisdiction or the fleet operated in the region want to do.

[1:34:57] So here's sort of two examples in San Bernardino of meeting the same power requirements

[1:35:01] with a different number of chargers at different power levels.

[1:35:05] One, the one on top uses a lot of lower power chargers.

[1:35:09] And a lot of that equipment is available now.

[1:35:10] It's commercial. It's off the shelf. It's easier to implement.

[1:35:13] A lot of it's out there already. It's maybe not necessarily being used for trucks right now.

[1:35:17] I can charge my EV at a 150 kilowatt station near my house, so anyone can go out and do that.

[1:35:24] The one below it shows a deployment that focuses more on higher power charging,

[1:35:29] so 350, 750 kilowatt hour and some what's called megawatt charging at one megawatt of power per

[1:35:36] hour. This is sort of what we see more out into the future in 2040 if you really want like a

[1:35:41] workforce network that can serve anyone who pulls up to the charger. It's this deployment,

[1:35:45] but it's more expensive. Some of the equipment is not available right now,

[1:35:50] commercially or even in some cases, it's still in the lab, and there's a much higher cost.

[1:35:55] So interestingly enough, we've been having a lot of conversations with fleet operators now

[1:36:00] who have zero mission fleets operating, and they've actually oversized their initial deployments

[1:36:06] to a degree. They sort of built out too much capacity out of concerns that, you know,

[1:36:10] we're not going to have enough power, we're not going to have enough chargers,

[1:36:13] And now they have chargers sitting idle while they're able to charge their trucks faster than they thought. Get them out and back to base, you know, with less issues than they initially found.

[1:36:23] So they're actually looking for partners to come in and use their chargers while they're sitting idle, you know, what fits in with their operational patterns.

[1:36:30] And this is actually really key for early adoption and sort of getting a lot of this off the ground. Industry is really talking to each other.

[1:36:37] folks who you think wouldn't, right, like major package carriers,

[1:36:41] people who compete with each other on a daily basis are saying,

[1:36:43] hey, we've got chargers here where you need them.

[1:36:45] Come and use them.

[1:36:46] Let's come to an agreement and make sure that, you know,

[1:36:49] we're getting the most out of this equipment that we've sunk a lot of capital into.

[1:36:53] So we're seeing these partnerships between carriers,

[1:36:55] between shippers, warehouse operators, package delivery companies.

[1:37:00] So this is a good sign that the industry is moving in this direction.

[1:37:04] They're not, you know, sort of abandoning their plans

[1:37:06] or just sort of tapering things off, letting stuff sit idle.

[1:37:09] They really want to see this succeed.

[1:37:11] And we've had those conversations consistently throughout this project

[1:37:15] and other work we're doing where we always bring up,

[1:37:17] hey, what's going on with you with zero-emission trucks?

[1:37:20] Where are you? What's working? What isn't?

[1:37:22] And this is the direction that they're heading into.

[1:37:25] So that's the energy simulation.

[1:37:26] That was kind of the biggest lift in the project.

[1:37:28] The other piece that we put together that sparked a lot of interest

[1:37:32] among our partners is this site prioritization tool we developed.

[1:37:35] So let me talk really quickly about what this tool isn't and what this tool is.

[1:37:40] So it is not here to tell people who use it, you need to develop this site in this year with this many chargers,

[1:37:47] because this is where the trucks are going to charge.

[1:37:49] That's a little bit cart before the horse.

[1:37:51] So it's really to help kind of screen down in different jurisdictions where are the best sort of areas or locations at a parcel level

[1:37:59] where you'd want to consider a sort of in-depth engineering analysis, sort of looking at your operation and seeing what fits your needs as a fleet operator or in some cases as a municipal site that would operate either for public truck charging or municipal fleets, right?

[1:38:15] Like, you know, cities have a lot of vehicles on their own that are transitioning to zero emission.

[1:38:20] So higher scoring sites, this is like five to ten points.

[1:38:24] They tend to be where trucks already are, where there's larger amounts of power,

[1:38:28] along major industrial and commercial distribution centers, along key freight corridors.

[1:38:34] A lot of existing truck parking sites actually scored very low

[1:38:37] because there was either insufficient grid capacity or they were located within disadvantaged communities.

[1:38:43] We have ways to sort of tweak the criteria if there are different goals based on who's using this.

[1:38:48] But the baseline set of criteria that was developed by our technical advisory committee, which was public agencies, industry, disadvantaged communities, and site operators sort of settled on sort of these requirements.

[1:39:01] And it was a deprioritizing site within disadvantaged communities to limit the effects of truck traffic, safety impacts that they were concerned about.

[1:39:11] So, I mean, actually what it does is it prioritizes, like, adjacent to disadvantaged communities.

[1:39:16] So there are still some benefits with zero-mission trucks coming in, but it doesn't necessarily go into those communities

[1:39:22] and create some of the negative impacts from truck traffic directly.

[1:39:26] Really quick recap, we had five main groups of siting criteria for EV charging and hydrogen-fueling infrastructure.

[1:39:32] So around utilization of the actual site, land characteristics, equity considerations, grid capacity, and environmental considerations.

[1:39:39] things like truck trip generation at that specific parcel.

[1:39:44] The relation to disadvantaged communities, the price of land,

[1:39:48] the amount of truck parking or distributed energy integration,

[1:39:51] things like solar panels, battery backup systems,

[1:39:54] or hydrogen fuel cells were also considered.

[1:39:57] I'm not going to show you the list of 17-plus screening and criteria.

[1:40:01] We don't have enough time to go over all of that, but it's all in the report.

[1:40:05] So we analyzed five million parcels in the SCAG region.

[1:40:09] Only about 10, a little less than 10%, so 460,000 met the criteria.

[1:40:14] This was based, again, on the tax input on sort of what their goals were for this tool,

[1:40:18] but these criteria are adjustable.

[1:40:20] If we just want to focus on one or two items for some specific goals, that's actually possible.

[1:40:26] So 300,000 of those 460 met both land use and the space needed for this.

[1:40:32] There's no point in developing a truck charging site where you can only fit one or two trucks.

[1:40:35] You want to be able to charge five, 10, 20, 50, 100 in some cases.

[1:40:39] So, we had some size constraints there that we incorporated as well.

[1:40:43] That energy demand is concentrated in a few locations.

[1:40:46] You can see kind of zero to one in terms of energy demand.

[1:40:49] That's the lowest score.

[1:40:51] There's a lot of parcels in that area.

[1:40:52] So, you can see there's a lot of concentration sort of in just a few parcels throughout

[1:40:56] the region.

[1:40:59] The other thing to keep in mind is most of the sites, they don't have the load

[1:41:02] hosting capacity currently.

[1:41:04] This is a lot of power at a single location that you would normally see associated with

[1:41:08] something like a steel furnace or some sort of power generation.

[1:41:14] So it's a lot of power, again, concentrated at the peak, but your average parcel doesn't

[1:41:19] have the capacity, but there's about 4,500 with partial capacity.

[1:41:23] Again, this is sort of like an early opportunity here, and 822 that have the full capacity

[1:41:27] to host the demand that's needed at that site right now.

[1:41:31] So this could really be explored to meet current energy demand, sort of near term fleet deployment, some of the smaller installations maybe don't use up all of the hosting capacity available at once.

[1:41:42] But sort of focus on building this out, showing proof of concept and building support within each operations fleet management team to make this succeed.

[1:41:53] The other interesting thing is that charging demand and load capacity don't overlap.

[1:41:57] If you looked at those maps, we sort of had larger areas where we were assessing demand,

[1:42:01] and that was to provide flexibility to, you know, not focus on, you know,

[1:42:05] we know what the demand is right here.

[1:42:07] There may have been a site next door that we didn't include in that analysis,

[1:42:11] so we sort of zoomed out a little bit to look at what the demand was in a larger area,

[1:42:15] and then there's a lot of little sites within there in the partial screening tool

[1:42:18] that let us find opportunities within the overall demand in the region.

[1:42:23] Most of the demand, according to the fleets and operators we've been talking to, has been depot-based.

[1:42:30] They're running pilots, they've been doing this for some 10-plus years,

[1:42:34] and they're really testing this out and seeing what works, what doesn't,

[1:42:37] learning those lessons, and we're in conversations with them.

[1:42:39] So we're learning from them what works, what markets are sort of ready for this

[1:42:44] and what needs more work.

[1:42:46] Public sites, based on their experience, our outreach and this analysis are really going to need to be there to support long-haul markets.

[1:42:54] These trucks don't have a fixed base. They come into the region. They make their delivery. They need to charge, and then they leave.

[1:43:00] And then there's a lot of small operators, one, two, maybe up to five or six trucks, where they're not parking at a depot at night.

[1:43:07] They're either leasing space or, in many cases, parking at their home where they either can't install charging in a high enough capacity or they live in an apartment.

[1:43:14] They rent. They don't have the ability to do that.

[1:43:16] And so they'll rely on these public sites to charge their truck up and get their work done.

[1:43:21] And they sort of serve all markets within the region. They tend to not be long-haul.

[1:43:26] I want to show three quick examples out of the tool to sort of look at how we're assessing different areas within the region.

[1:43:32] So this is just south of downtown LA, near some rail infrastructure, some warehousing.

[1:43:37] There's a USPS facility there, and it's adjacent to rail yards, intermodal facilities, a lot of industrial warehousing.

[1:43:43] This is kind of like the prime site for early deployment.

[1:43:46] There's a lot of power here.

[1:43:47] There's a lot of demand.

[1:43:48] And the infrastructure, you know, would serve a lot of uses in close proximity,

[1:43:53] or even a single location that just has a lot of demand already.

[1:43:57] This is another area in Rancho Dominguez off the 110.

[1:44:00] This is a little bit further south.

[1:44:01] Kind of in the Gateway Cog area.

[1:44:03] This is more of a scattered site example.

[1:44:05] You couldn't install really large facilities here.

[1:44:08] But if every location on this map had two to maybe 10 chargers at most,

[1:44:13] that's kind of what they could support. You could serve a lot of demand in this region.

[1:44:16] There's a lot of activity that's serving local goods movement consumption, as well as sort of

[1:44:22] regional, statewide, and even national. So this is a pretty busy area. It's sort of a

[1:44:27] lot of different businesses of a lot of different sizes. And so scattered site works here and the

[1:44:31] sort of barrier to entry is much lower. A third thing that the Hool did where it sort

[1:44:36] of didn't really hit the mark, but we have that local context and understanding of freight

[1:44:40] in the region is this is near the Ontario airport. If you live in this area, go

[1:44:45] through this area, you know there's a ton of warehousing, a ton of freight

[1:44:48] activity. A lot of these sites didn't score highly just because they didn't

[1:44:51] have the load capacity, the available truck parking, or sort of other

[1:44:57] considerations within the tool. Again, we can adjust these

[1:45:05] So, we can sort of combine the tool with local understanding of what's going on and then work with those jurisdictions to help them plan for the infrastructure that they need.

[1:45:18] So, again, low scores don't necessarily mean you don't need infrastructure there. It's just it doesn't meet the initial criteria that our project developed.

[1:45:26] So, that's why we need to work with those local jurisdictions.

[1:45:29] The last thing that's really tricky about this is this is a really new industry.

[1:45:33] This is a really new type of construction for a lot of the operators.

[1:45:36] It's not something they typically build.

[1:45:38] And so we actually get to learn from them learning about the site development

[1:45:43] and the permitting and construction process.

[1:45:46] In a lot of cases, they made a lot of mistakes early on.

[1:45:50] And so they didn't know how, like I said, they didn't know how to engage with utilities,

[1:45:53] ask the right questions to develop their site.

[1:45:55] They built too much capacity or just couldn't get the capacity that they needed from the grid operator.

[1:46:01] So a lot of them actually encourage delays that were just sort of related to normal construction, right?

[1:46:07] Another contractor was busy. There were delays and deliveries.

[1:46:10] Kind of like any public's work project, there can sometimes be start and stop based on the type of project.

[1:46:15] And so they're coordinating multiple contractors out of different industries.

[1:46:20] This sort of cascade through the timeline, especially if there's delays, usually it wasn't on permitting but the actual procurement process.

[1:46:26] They're buying equipment they've never had to buy before, not just the electric trucks but, you know, meters, transformers,

[1:46:33] laying a wire into the ground and pouring that concrete.

[1:46:36] So this is a new area for them.

[1:46:38] The biggest constraint, I would say, again, is getting that power to that site.

[1:46:43] The way that truck fleets operate, they plan maybe one to two years in the future at most for their equipment and vendor needs.

[1:46:50] Public utilities, they plan on a five to ten-year scale.

[1:46:53] It takes them longer to deliver that.

[1:46:55] They require a lot of upfront investment.

[1:46:57] And so that being said, the utilities, they are learning and figuring out sort of where they need to get power ahead of time.

[1:47:04] There's a lot of sort of other research and private agreements between folks like SCE, LADWP,

[1:47:09] large package operators, large fleets where they're actually sharing information

[1:47:13] and telling the utilities, here's where we plan something in one to two years,

[1:47:18] or maybe three or four, what can you do in the near term to help us support that?

[1:47:22] So there's actually some really good partnerships and coordination going on

[1:47:25] that are supporting sort of a fast deployment of a lot of this infrastructure.

[1:47:29] Some are also utilizing portable power.

[1:47:32] They basically think of a battery the size of a container, so 28 feet long.

[1:47:36] They'll park it on site, they can stand up four chargers with 150 kilowatts of power in about a day and a half.

[1:47:43] And so that can help bridge either peak demand during the day or service like a waypoint where maybe they can't deploy a charging solution,

[1:47:51] but they know their trucks are getting out there and are going to need to charge in that area.

[1:47:54] So there's some sort of bridge solutions and temporary deployments that we're seeing installed.

[1:47:59] And this is in California and then in other areas like Arizona and Texas where they have other pilots going on.

[1:48:06] And then the last piece I want to talk about is sort of this is all happening in a sort

[1:48:11] of shifting policy environment and we need to be cognizant of that.

[1:48:14] Like I said, a lot of the analysis was done with ACT, ACF and current incentives in place.

[1:48:21] California's withdrawn their ACF waiver from the EPA rulemaking process.

[1:48:26] The Senate is trying to roll back ACT and other California requirements around clean

[1:48:30] trucks, pull back incentive money.

[1:48:32] The state is still moving ahead with its own incentive programs.

[1:48:35] They're sort of figuring out how to navigate the current policy and political environment,

[1:48:40] and they haven't rolled out and shared all of their plans yet,

[1:48:43] but we're in close contact with them so that we're aware of what's coming

[1:48:46] so we can advise all of our regional partners.

[1:48:49] Interestingly enough, in a lot of our conversations with fleets, with OEMs,

[1:48:54] with warehousing operators, they understand that truck manufacturing

[1:48:58] is really going in this direction no matter what.

[1:49:00] But truck OEMs, they're global companies.

[1:49:03] They want to develop a global product, manufacture it locally, but they don't want to have ten

[1:49:08] different models and ten different powertrains, you know, for ten different countries throughout

[1:49:11] the world.

[1:49:12] So the rest of the world is moving towards zero-emission trucks.

[1:49:16] The OEMs see that.

[1:49:17] They still support their legacy diesel models.

[1:49:19] They see opportunities for clean diesel in the future, but they know in the medium

[1:49:23] and long term it's going to be zero-emission trucks.

[1:49:25] One of the examples they gave was manual transmissions in the 60s and the 70s.

[1:49:29] Truckers wouldn't drive a truck unless it was a manual transmission. They were like no way know how am I going to drive an automatic transmission?

[1:49:35] We talked to Mac a couple of days ago. They manufactured trucks globally

[1:49:40] They had a demo project where they had to go out and get a truck and practice on a manual transmission

[1:49:45] And they couldn't find one in their demo fleet in any of their fleets that they'd sold to other operators

[1:49:50] So that the change is there's a lot of resistance at first, but it happens

[1:49:53] They see a similar perception with their customers around zero mission trucks that there's resistance

[1:49:59] It's expensive. There's a lot of learning that has to happen, but they see it as the future.

[1:50:05] So, and just some quick numbers really here. China sold 82,000 EV trucks in 2024. Europe

[1:50:12] sold 3,400. There were 1,476 electric trucks sold in the U.S. and almost all of those were

[1:50:20] in California. So even if it doesn't come to the rest of the country, it is slowly but surely

[1:50:25] coming here. So the carriers are also not interested in, like I said, in sort of

[1:50:31] reversing these significant investments that they've made, right? They've learned

[1:50:35] a lot. They've spent a lot of money. They've run a lot of pilots. They don't

[1:50:38] want to say they don't want to drop it and turn around and say we don't want

[1:50:41] this anymore. Their customers want it. More importantly, a lot of the

[1:50:44] shippers and carriers are global companies. They have pressure from other

[1:50:48] stakeholders around the world. They have environmental and sustainability

[1:50:51] commitments that they've made, and so they're moving forward with this.

[1:50:55] And we also see a lot of other states sort of following California's lead,

[1:50:59] if not a sort of full-throated reproduction of ACF and ACT,

[1:51:04] they're adopting parts of those rules and deploying them, you know,

[1:51:07] within their own jurisdiction. So there's parity in other parts of the country

[1:51:11] that will support sort of the long-term development of this.

[1:51:14] And then the last piece is what SCAG is doing with its own work.

[1:51:17] So there's a lot of overlap with this in some of our future projects.

[1:51:21] So, the last mile freight program, that's a program focused on medium duty truck electrification incentives.

[1:51:28] Like I said, that's a really big opportunity to address some of the shorter range VMT and emissions that come from medium duty trucks.

[1:51:35] It's half the demand in the region.

[1:51:37] Our on the move project, so an update to our comprehensive sustainable freight plan, that's going to have a zero emissions vehicle technology assessment.

[1:51:45] So what's the state of current technology?

[1:51:47] And that's going to include things, not just trucks and charging, but sort of management systems.

[1:51:52] There's a lot of questions around autonomous electric or, you know, driverless trucks.

[1:51:56] And so we're going to look at some of those things.

[1:51:58] We're also working just with the outputs from this project to sort of disaggregate that regional demand and zoom into specific jurisdictions,

[1:52:06] specific areas where we know there's interest.

[1:52:08] A lot of our regional partners are reaching out and are curious about the data we've developed.

[1:52:12] They want to understand things like local energy demand,

[1:52:16] workforce development requirements or opportunities,

[1:52:19] and that includes, you know, Metro, SPCTA.

[1:52:21] Some of the utilities want to know what we're seeing,

[1:52:24] so they can sort of adequately plan for grid development.

[1:52:28] We've also talked to, actually,

[1:52:30] we recently talked to a hydrogen developer,

[1:52:31] SoCal Gas, wanted to understand hydrogen demand

[1:52:34] so they could plan for some of their facilities.

[1:52:36] And then we're also talking with freight operators, OEM,

[1:52:39] so that they understand what's happening

[1:52:41] to the public process so they're not duplicating or overlapping their efforts with our own.

[1:52:47] And like I said, we're talking to our regional partners, we're talking to local jurisdictions

[1:52:51] so that we can apply our analysis to their specific needs, tailoring the process of prioritization,

[1:52:56] kind of unpacking site and charger requirements within their jurisdiction to help them plan

[1:53:01] for this, set land aside, make investments, and support what is coming for the future.

[1:53:06] So that was a lot in a really short amount of time, but I'm happy to take any questions

[1:53:10] questions now or follow-up later on?

[1:53:12] Well, we ran out of time.

[1:53:13] We have to clear the room for Regent and Council.

[1:53:15] Everybody that has their hands up or their cards up, we're going to make sure

[1:53:18] you get the presenter's information, and so you can email questions to him directly.

[1:53:23] Yes.

[1:53:23] Thank you all for coming to the meeting.

[1:53:24] I want to remind everybody that we're going to be dark in July and August.

[1:53:27] That's why this meeting went a little long, so we crammed a lot of stuff into it.

[1:53:31] So we'll see you back in September, and the meeting is now adjourned.

TC - Transportation Committee Regular Meeting

Transcript